Doctor ‘dredged’ web for child porn images
ATOP doctor who collected 11,000 indecent images of children after Googling the phrases “pre-teen hardcore” and “paedo” has walked free from court.
Dr Emil Guirguis, 59, had worked as a consultant anaesthetist but outside of work “dredged the darkest recesses” of the internet for vile snaps of abused children.
His “double life” was finally exposed when police raided his £400,000 home in Solihull, with officers seizing several laptops and hard-drives.
They also found he had searched for pornography on the internet, using the terms “paedo” and “pre-teen hardcore”.
They then searched the Guirguis’ other home in Penkhull, Staffordshires, where they seized more devices in June last year.
The devices were analysed and were found to contain more than 11,000 indecent images of children and 1,028 extreme pornographic images.
He admitted three offences of possessing indecent images of children; three offences of making indecent images of children; and one offence of possessing extreme pornographic images.
Guirguis, who had 35 years experience at the Royal Stoke University Hospital and Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, has since retired.
He was handed a three-year community order with a requirement to comply with the internet sex offender treatment programme.
He was made the subject of a five-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order and will be on the sex offenders’ register for the same period.
He was also barred from working with children or vulnerable adults.
Sentencing him at Stoke-onTrent Crown Court, Judge Timothy Smith said: “Yours is a con- siderable contradiction. You are somebody who has lived a double life.
“On the one hand, a respected member of the community, upstanding and doing all you can for others in a caring profession.
“You joined a church mission in Ethiopia.
“It is impossible to say how somebody in that position, having a faith and being an active member of a church congregation, how it is that somebody such as that has spent their time dredging what is the darkest and deepest recesses of the most despicable part of the internet.
“Each of the images that you downloaded were images of real children. They seemed to be in pain, they seemed to be crying. They are undergoing pain, loneliness and despair.
“It defies belief. You have brought shame upon yourself, your family and your profession.”
Guirguis told a probation officer he did not get any sexual gratification from looking at the images. He also claimed he did not realise what he was doing was illegal or that the victims were being abused.
Arvind Sharma, defending, said he was a very well-respected doctor who had “gone over and beyond the call of duty” and has worked voluntarily in Ethiopia.
Mr Sharma said: “He has led a double life. His colleagues speak of him in glowing terms. Sadly at the same time he has been engaging in the enterprise of accessing these images.
“There are a large number of images and they show young children in distress. He now fully appreciates the harm of his actions.
“He is thoroughly ashamed of himself. He had taken a considerable fall from grace.”
A spokesperson for University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust said: “Dr Guirguis has since left the Trust, but a GMC case is ongoing, which the Trust will continue to support.”