June 1987 Lord Chief Justice compared images of child abuse with ‘collecting cigarette cards’ Oliver Brooke was the Head of Paediatric Medicine at St. George’s Hospital, Tooting. He was jailed for a collection of thousands of images of child abuse which he kept in a cupboard in his office at the hospital. He admitted “offences involving the procurement, collection and distribution of indecent images of children mostly aged 12-14, some posing with adults, and some as young as eight.” Duplicates of the photographs were passed on to ‘three or four’ other paedophiles. Brooke was spending £800 a year on indecent images. He was directly responsible for the sexual abuse of children, and made notes such as “Very nice, but not quite enough crotch” so his contacts could produce ‘better’ photographs for him. Brooke appealed his conviction, and the appeal was heard by Lord Lane, the Lord Chief Justice, who was the second highest judge in Britain, second only to the Lord Chancellor. Lord Lane cut Brooke’s sentence to six months, which meant he was immediately freed from jail, having already served a few months of his sentence. Lord Lane said: “It is not inappropriate, perhaps, in view of the puerility of this type of behaviour, to compare it rather to a schoolboy collecting cigarette cards in olden times, because the duplicates were handed on to other adults, three of four of them only, who were likewise minded to indulge in this sort of puerility. To that extent the distribution was by no means of the most vicious sort. It is perfectly plain from those, (the testimonials read out about Brooke) that we are dealing here with someone who, apart from these offences, was an unusually fine man.’ The sentencing took into account It appears that no effort was made to track down the other members of Brooke’s paedophile ring, and no effort was made to trace the children who Brooke had commissioned to be sexually abused. Lord Lane was more concerned about the ‘humiliation’ Brooke had suffered through having his sick ‘hobby’ exposed.