Paedophile paediatrician who worked at Great Ormond Street convicted over 'most serious' child abuse images

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A paedophile doctor who worked at Great Ormond Street Hospital (Gosh) has been spared an immediate prison sentence over indecent images of children.

Paediatrician Ralph Harper, 31, downloaded dozens of videos showing children as young as eight being raped and sexually abused.

Prosecutors said it was “particularly worrying” that he committed the offences while working with ill and vulnerable children as a junior doctor.

“The images found on Harper’s personal laptop were of children aged between eight and 14 years old, and included 21 category A moving images – the most serious kind,” the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

“There were also nine category B moving images and six category C moving images.”

Harper was arrested in November after a police investigation discovered that illegal images were being downloaded at his home address in Stratford, east London.

He pleaded guilty to making indecent photographs of a child at Snaresbrook Crown Court.

A judge handed him an eight-month jail term on Wednesday but suspended it for 16 months, meaning Harper will not go to prison unless he commits further offences or violates his licence conditions.

He was also put on the sex offenders’ register and handed a sexual harm prevention order.

Olivia Ball, from the CPS, said: “Harper broke the law by downloading illegal images of children. As a qualified junior doctor in the paediatric sphere, his conduct was particularly worrying.

“He will now have to accept the consequences of his actions in regards to future employment in the medical profession.

“The CPS will continue to work with the police and other partners to prosecute those who fuel the sexual exploitation of children in this way.”

Harper worked as a junior doctor at Gosh from September 2016 to March 2017, then moved to the neonatal department at London’s St Mary’s hospital until September 2017.

At the time of his arrest, he was working at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health.

A spokesperson for the institute said: “UCL conducts thorough background checks on all our employees, including DBS checks where required.

“No issues were raised at the time and the incidents occurred outside UCL. As soon as we became aware of Dr Harper’s arrest, his employment with us ended with immediate effect.”

A spokesperson for Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs St Mary’s, said: “There were no complaints made against him while he was working at the trust.”

Harper also passed all pre-employment checks at Gosh, the hospital said.

“Whilst here, no complaints from staff or patients were made against him,” a spokesperson added.

“We worked closely with the police to support their investigation and conducted our own internal review which found no evidence he misused his position during his short time at Gosh.”

The case came after police warned that a “horrifying” number of men are viewing child sex abuse images online in Britain.

A total of more than 22,700 offences, including taking, distributing and possessing indecent images of children, were recorded in 2017/18 – up by 23 per cent on the previous year.

Campaigners said a single offence recorded by police can involve hundreds of indecent images of children and have called for internet regulation to prevent paedophiles uploading and sharing them.

The NSPCC said every image viewed “represents a real child who has been groomed and abused to supply the demand of this appalling trade”.

The government has been considering the issue as part of an upcoming white paper on “online harms”.