Leeds doctor spent 11 years downloading almost 40,000 child porn images

John Embery spent more than a decade accessing the sickening pictures and movies of youngsters being sexually abused before the offending came to light.

Leeds Crown Court heard police went to Embery's flat on Alma Road, Headingley, on August 13, 2018.

The 50-year-old answered the door and admitted to officers that he had indecent images of children on computers at the property.

Embery was arrested and a lap top and hard drives were seized for analysis.

An investigation revealed Embery had accessed a total of 39,498 illegal images between 2007 up until the date of his arrest.

Bashir Ahmed, prosecuting, said 101 images were at category A - the most serious level of offending.

The vast majority of the images, 39,259 in total, were category C images.

Mr Ahmed said the computers were fitted with file sharing equipment but there was no evidence that Embery had distributed images to others.

Embery pleaded guilty to three offences of making indecent images of a child, one of possessing an extreme pornographic image and possession of a prohibited image of a child.

The court heard Embery has previous convictions, committed in 2012, for making indecent images of children.

For those offences he was given a suspended prison sentence and placed on the sex offender register.

The prosecutor said Embery's latest offending predate his earlier convictions and continued while he was serving the suspended sentence and was the subject of supervision.

Eddison Flint, mitigating, said Embery pleaded guilty to the offences at an early stage.

Mr Flint said: "This is a rather sad case. This defendant is a well-educated man - Dr John Embery. He has a PhD in chemistry from the University of Leeds."

The barrister said Embery had lost his job and his home after the 2012 convictions and became isolated.

Mr Flint said Embery had a drink problem and was willing to receive treatment to address his offending.

Embery was jailed for nine months.