LECTURER CHRISTOPHER BISHOP JAILED IN LIVERPOOL FOR CHILD INDECENT IMAGES

In January 2005, Christopher Bishop, a 52-year-old university lecturer, was sentenced to a year in prison after being found guilty of possessing nearly 2,500 indecent images of children. Bishop, who resigned from his position as a senior lecturer in the biological earth sciences department at Liverpool's John Moores University, was arrested following police investigations.

Liverpool Crown Court learned that authorities discovered the illegal images on two computers at Bishop's home in Wirral and on a computer at the university. Prosecutor Gordon Cole revealed that Bishop, a Doctor of Philosophy in electron microscopy, had downloaded a total of 2,482 child pornography images depicting very young children. Cole stated, “He came to their attention as he was found to have subscribed to a website operated by a company called Landslide, which is the subject of Operation Ore, a worldwide investigation launched in America.”

Bishop, of Milner Road, Heswall, admitted to making indecent photographs of children before March 10 of the previous year. His arrest was part of Operation Glendevon, conducted by Merseyside police officers. During questioning, Bishop revealed that one of his passwords was 'Kawasaki,' which he said was related to his Kawasaki motorcycle, and that he used this password to access the offending images.

Although Bishop acknowledged he was a regular visitor to adult pornography sites, he claimed he had never directly accessed child pornography sites. Gordon Cole added, “He accepted he was a regular visitor to websites which contained adult porn, but said he had never directly accessed child porn sites.”

The police seized his desktop and laptop computers from his home and university office at the Byrom Street site. In addition to the images, a CD-ROM was found containing five video clips of children, some playing and some dancing. The court heard that almost all the images fell into the least serious category, but nine were classified in the two most severe categories.

Asked if he was responsible for placing the images on his computers, Bishop responded, “yes, I was.” He explained he had visited the website out of curiosity, then realized it was wrong and attempted to delete the images.

Representing Bishop, defense attorney Donal McGuire highlighted that Bishop had no previous convictions, was a hardworking family man, and had since taken a lower-paid job. McGuire remarked, “He had established a successful career supported by his wife, daughter, family, and friends. His fall from grace could not be greater.”

Judge John Roberts sentenced Bishop to 12 months in prison and ordered him to register as a sex offender for ten years. The judge described the images as depicting children none of whom appeared to be older than 13, with some as young as five or six. He stated, “The more people who are curious enough to access such images, the more material there will be and the longer the cycle of abuse suffered.”