Child picture pervert walks free

A PERVERTED former teacher with a fetish for the spanking of children - and a long-running history of taking indecent child photos - is today a free man.

Christopher Fuller told how we welcomed the opportunity to get help and to turn over a new leaf but a child protection charity has criticised the court's decision.

The seemingly respectable Suffolk man was most recently caught taking photographs of a naked toddler in a fountain in London's Trafalgar Square.

Despite a sickening history of photographing and videoing children, Fuller was spared jail when sentenced for his latest offences by the capital's Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court.

The 52-year-old was instead free to return to his home in Jackson Way, Needham Market - a move slammed by child protection charity Kidscape.

The charity's director, Dr Michele Elliott, said: “This man, in my opinion, is a danger to children

“They should have given him a prison sentence to show him that what he did was wrong and, more importantly, to keep him away from children.”

But charity Stop It Now! UK and Ireland, dedicated to preventing child sexual abuse, said short prison sentences do not help child sex offenders.

Director Tink Palmer said the orders Fuller has now received, including a sex offenders' programme order, may finally help address his problem.

Fuller was caught after London's Charing Cross CID launched operations back in July 2004, in response to complaints about people taking indecent images of children in the Trafalgar Square area. Indecent images were later found on his computer.

Fuller admitted taking an indecent image of a child, possessing five indecent images of children and five counts of making an indecent image of a child.

At Fuller's sentencing , it emerged that he had a fetish for the spanking of children and that he was surprised some of the photographs were still on the computer - he thought he had deleted them.

Fuller, who was recently dismissed from his job at Ipswich railway station, received a five-year sexual offenders' programme order.

He is banned from unsupervised contact with under-16s, from doing any work allowing him access to children, from having or using any equipment capable of accessing the internet and from having any image-recording equipment in a public place.

Fuller also has a three-year community rehabilitation order, which involves attending a sex offenders' programme, was placed on the sex offenders' register for five years and has to pay £1,000 costs.

Back in May 1997, Fuller was jailed for a year by Chelmsford Crown Court after being convicted of taking indecent photographs of a child.

Police had arrested him at Walton-on-the-Naze in June 1996 and found he had a video camera with film of young boys in various states of undress in the changing rooms of an East Sussex swimming pool.

In February 1991, Fuller - then a Sheffield maths tutor of Cross Hill, Ecclesfield - received a 12-month suspended jail term from Lincoln Crown Court after admitting four counts of taking indecent photographs of minors and asking for 146 other offences to be taken into consideration.

He was caught after the mother of a nine-year-old girl spotted him filming in a Skegness paddling pool using a spy camera hidden in a bag.

The court heard at the time that Fuller had a catalogue of 3,000 photographs and 40 videos of naked and scantily clad children - and that he had indexed the shots and sequences of 1,000 children over 20 years.

Mrs Palmer said: “This is a typical scenario of somebody who has a sexual interest in children. People who wish to abuse children will go into professions where they can easily access children.

“We need to stop sexual abuse before it happens - and taking indecent photos is child sexual abuse even if the child isn't aware.

“It's no good shoving people in prison without a proper intervention programme.

“He will be monitored in the community and it's great news that he will receive help to change his behaviour.”

But Dr Elliott said: “The inappropriate behaviour he has displayed is obsessive and it's very unlikely in cases like this that a person will actually change.

“Unless they are compelled with treatment and accept some responsibility for what they have done, their behaviour does not change.

“I would have liked to have seen a prison sentence, with treatment in prison.”

Do you think Fuller should have been sent to jail? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN or send us an e-mail to eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk

www.kidscape.org.uk

www.stopitnowuk.org.uk

CHRISTOPHER Fuller today denied ever wishing to harm a child.

Asked about his fetish for the spanking of children, he said only: “At no time in my life have I had the slightest desire to cause any harm to any child.

“I feel the same way as any other person about people who harm children.”

Explaining his most recent conviction, he said: “The case related to a total of 11 images, ten of which were deleted in 2002 from my computer and which I had no access to.

“Apart from one image from Trafalgar Square, there was nothing on my computer that hadn't been immediately accessed and deleted in 2002.

“I accept that I had gone to parts of the internet that I shouldn't have. There were images that I had found and immediately deleted because I didn't want anything to do with them.

“The one that I had kept was of a young child on the edge of the photograph who happened to be changing at the time, but it was one of a series of tourist photographs.”

Asked about his previous convictions, Fuller said: “To the best of my knowledge, with regards to the images relating to past offences, no child was aware of the images taken so should not have suffered any harm.”

Speaking about his sentence, he added: “I welcome the opportunity the court has given me to receive some opportunity for a programme of help now.

“I am hoping for a fresh start in my life and hoping to turn over a new leaf.

“I welcome the court's attitude of seeking to help people rather than to punish.”