Dyslexia expert facing jail in child porn case

Simon Bristow

A WORLD expert in child dyslexia is facing jail after being caught with thousands of indecent images of children.

Retired university lecturer Dr Christopher Howard Singleton was snared as part of a nationwide child porn investigation run by police forces across the country.

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The former senior lecturer in educational psychology at Hull University pleaded guilty to six counts of downloading more than 6,734 indecent images of children dating back to 2006 when he appeared at Hull Crown Court.

The 65-year-old also admitted three counts of possessing indecent pictures of children, images which were found on his computer on February 12 last year.

The child porn was discovered just 22 days after Singleton had appeared as the key speaker at a British Dyslexia Association conference, which formed part of a Government report.

He has been warned he may face jail when he reappears in court next month for sentencing.

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Judge Jeremy Richardson QC said: “All sentencing options are open. That includes a custodial sentence.”

The judge adjourned the case for pre-sentencing reports and told Singleton: “You are now on the Sex Offenders Register and how long you remain on it will depend on the sentencing judge.”

Singleton, of Hull Road, Cottingham, East Yorkshire, was one of the leading figures in his field and developed the world’s first computer programme to test five-year-olds for dyslexia.

He has written four books on dyslexia and authored 100 papers on the subject.

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The Government used his work last year to shape national policy on dealing with dyslexia.

The software he produced is in 6,000 schools in the UK and used internationally.

Singleton had conducted his original tests on more than 400 five-year-olds in 28 schools in Hull and the East Riding in 1992 and observed them for two years.

Following this research, he developed a computer programme called the Lucid Cognitive Profiling System, which can assess five-year-olds and identify, with a high degree of accuracy, whether they suffer from dyslexia.

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He also created computer-based assessment materials for teachers to use to identify dyslexic children aged four to 15, and worked with a Beverley company in distributing it.

Last November, Sir Jim Rose published his findings on dyslexia for the Government using Singleton’s work, which for the first time brought together international evidence on the impact of specialist teaching on children.

Singleton joined the university in 1969 and specialised in dyslexia for 30 years.

He was the research director and chairman of the departmental research committee, was vice-chairman of the university’s disabilities committee, and supervised its dyslexic students.

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A spokeswoman for the university said: “He did work at the university but he retired at the end of June last year. He is no longer associated with the university.”

Singleton has also been a committee member of the British Dyslexia Association for more than 10 years and worked as a psychological consultant to organisations including the police and Royal Air Force.

He also edited a trade journal and spoke at international conferences in 11 different countries.

Singleton's barrister Anil Murray asked for his court case to be adjourned for the preparation of a pre-sentence report and for medical evidence and character references to be obtained.

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