Missing man's father put on sex crime list

Simon Bristow

THE father of a missing student has been placed on the sex offenders’ register and ordered to attend a sex offenders’ treatment programme after he admitted making and possessing hundreds of indecent images of children.

Roger Bohling, 57, whose son Russell went missing more than six months ago, claimed a cocktail of drugs he was taking for a degenerative brain disease contributed to his offending and he had now stopped taking them.

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A court heard the retired civil servant had previously made a “substantial contribution” to society, in reference to an anti-corruption investigation he worked on at the Home Office.

At an earlier hearing he pleaded guilty to five counts of making indecent photographs or pseudo photographs of a child, three counts of possessing indecent photographs of a child, and three of possessing extreme pornographic images involving women and animals.

Sentencing Bohling at Hull Crown Court yesterday, Judge Alistair McDonald said: “It’s very sad to see somebody, who from what I’ve read about you, has performed significant public service in the past appear in court for offences of this sort.

“You have clearly made a substantial contribution to society in the past. Unfortunately you will lose your good character by acceptance of your guilt and that will live with you, I’m afraid, for the rest of your life.”

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The offences were discovered on March 23 after Bohling asked police to examine his computers for clues to his son’s disappearance. He called police the same day to tell them the images were on his computer.

A further search of the family home at The Fairway, West Ella, near Hull, and a holiday home in Ravenscar, North Yorkshire, saw other computers, CDs and digital storage devices seized, which were also found to have indecent images on them.

More than 400 indecent images of children were found, as well as adult bestiality films.

The images of children were classed as level one, the least serious on a scale of one to five.

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Charlotte Baines, for Bohling, said he and his family were experiencing a “living hell” because of the “tragic circumstances” of Russell’s disappearance.

Russell Bohling, 18, was last seen at 8am on March 2 when he left home in the family’s blue Renault Clio and was expected to travel to Bishop Burton College, near Beverley.

It is not known whether he arrived and the car was found abandoned at Bempton Cliffs nature reserve, near Bridlington.

Ms Baines said: “The family in reality are having to experience a living hell. Every time remains are found the family are told and are having to endure further hell.”

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She added: “The defendant has been frank enough to say that that is at the forefront of his mind at this present time, and not the punishment he is going to get from this court.”

Bohling, who will be on the sex offenders’ register for five years, was also made subject to a sexual offenders’ prevention order for the same period, which grants police immediate access to his computers to check whether further offences have been committed.

He was also ordered to pay the 425 costs of the hearing.

Bohling will also meet the costs of transferring the family’s personal records from the computers before the hard drives are destroyed.

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