Paedophile jailed over child photos

A paedophile described as "one of the most infamous perverts on earth" was back behind bars today for smuggling indecent photographs of children.

The 94 images of children aged between two and 10 were seized by Customs officers when packing cases belonging to Thomas O'Carroll arrived at Heathrow airport as he returned from Qatar. Today he was jailed for nine months at Southwark Crown Court.

O'Carroll, 56, claimed his fullfrontal photographs of naked girls and boys, taken without their knowledge or consent, were comparable to an art exhibition. But a jury convicted him on three charges of importing indecent material without knowing he was a former chairman of the Paedophile Information Exchange (Pie).

The organisation had more than 300 members and campaigned to legalise sex with children before it was broken up by police in the Eighties.

Jury members were also not told he had served two years in prison for corrupting public morals and is a member of a new paedophile group called Gwain (Gentlemen Without An Interesting Name) believed to have at least 200 members.

The court had heard how O'Carroll, of Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, was arrested at Heathrow last October as he returned from the Middle East, where he worked for an English language newspaper.

He had 94 photographs in albums hidden in packages of "household effects" and claimed they were comparable with the controversial exhibition by artist Tierney Gearon at the Saatchi Gallery. Sentencing O'Carroll to three nine-month sentences to run concurrently Judge Geoffrey Rivlin said the guilty man had a "background of a long- standing and expressed interest in and even, it might be said, obsession with paedophilia". He also placed O'Carroll on the sex offenders register for 10 years.

Judge Rivlin added: "Though it is almost certain that neither the children involved in these photographs nor their parents were aware you were photographing them, I have no doubt they would be horrified if they knew."

Customs officer Mark McCormack said: "I am very pleased this man, a potential menace to society, has been taken off the streets for some time at least."