December 2014 Ex-Doctor viewed more child abuse images after first conviction A disgraced doctor, who was struck off after being caught with hundreds of sick child abuse images while working in Bexhill, has been jailed for ten months after software installed on his computer tipped-off police that he had downloaded 1,088 more images. Michael David Beranek, 44, of Harmondsworth Road, West Drayton, had worked as a psychiatrist with vulnerable people suffering mental health issues when he was caught the first time. He received 20 weeks imprisonment, suspended for two years, at Lewes Crown Court in 2012 after police found over 800 indecent images of children on his computer. At the time he was working at The Langford Centre, Bexhill. He was made the subject to a five-year Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO), which monitored his internet use. As a result of that monitoring police realised he was viewing child abuse images again. He pleaded guilty at Isleworth Crown Court to four charges of making indecent photographs of children on or before January 21. Prosecutor Mr Ravinder Johal told the court: “There were no problems initially and he was being managed as a low-risk offender. He had remote software on his computer that triggered illegal intent use.” When police arrived Beranek tried to claim he had restricted his internet viewing to fetish sites involving adults. But Mr Johal continued : “He then admitted accessing indecent images of children after he received an email link from a third party.” The link Beranek clicked and downloaded advertised the fact it contained sexual images of girls aged 11, 12, and 13. He told police he stored the images in the hard drive and he was arrested. He also told them : “It’s better you came tonight before it got more out of control.” The court made him subject to a fresh five-year SOPO and he was ordered to sign the sex offenders register. February 2013 Child abuse images doctor’s appeal for leniency The picture above is NOT Dr Michael Beranek A doctor downloaded hundreds of sick child abuse images but told bosses it did not affect how he worked because he did it “in the privacy of his own home”. Dr Michael Beranek added that he should be treated more leniently because he had accessed the images – some of them the most severe available – for free. And he told health officials he should be allowed to carry on working as a staff psychiatrist, caring for mentally ill people in Sussex, because looking at the images had not affected his ability to work. Beranek was convicted at Lewes Crown Court after police swooped on his haul of 800-plus images in January last year. Beranek, 42, worked as a psychiatrist at The Langford Centre, a centre for vulnerable people with mental health problems, in De La Warr Road, Bexhill, and had worked there for about nine years. Now Beranek, who is understood to have acted as an expert witness in court cases, has been struck off the doctors’ register and banned from looking after patients ever again. Sentenced A Medical Practitioners’ Tribunal Service (MPTS) hearing, the results of which have just been published, was told that Beranek was sentenced in April for making indecent images of children. Jail sentence He was handed a suspended 20-week jail sentence and was ordered to take part in a 60-day supervision order. He was also made the subject of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order, which controls his access to children for five years, and was ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for seven years. A report from the MPTS hearing said: “You stated that you had never accessed such images at your workplace and that your clinical practice had not been affected by how you behaved in the privacy of your home. “The panel does not consider that you have shown any understanding of the consequences for the children involved in the creating of those images or the vulnerable position in which they were put.” The doctor, who gave his address in court as West Drayton in Middlesex, declined to comment