Stab victim spared jail over abuse images
ONE of the victims of a London terror attack has been spared jail after he was caught with a stash of child porn.
Adam Harris, 38, had hundreds of images and videos at his West Hampstead flat in north London of children being abused.
He pleaded for leniency after being stabbed twice during the London Bridge attack on June 3, in which eight people were killed and 48 injured.
Harris was charged by police five months before the atrocity and has since moved back to Northumberland to live with his mother.
He was sentenced to nine months imprisonment suspended for two years at Blackfriars Crown Court yesterday.
Judge Deva Pillay said: “The reality is that whenever anyone appears before this court in possession of contraband of this extreme nature it is to prison they go immediately.”
He added that he would suspend the sentence after reading medical reports about Harris’s psychological state and his undergoing treatment.
Harris, wearing jeans, a white shirt and blue blazer, showed no emotion as the sentence was passed.
His mother sat weeping in the public gallery of the court.
Judith Benson, defending, said in mitigation that Harris has suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, “extreme” anxiety and depression since the attack.
“He was a victim of the attack and almost died,” she added.
He reportedly featured on a JustGiving page, which raised over £7,000 and has since been removed.
Harris downloaded more than 1,000 indecent images and videos over at least a 12 month period before January last year, including more than 200 in the most severe category and abuse of very young children and an infant.
Prosecutor Alexander Matic described the content as “quite distressing” and “wholly shameful”.
Harris, of Ashington, Northumberland, previously admitted three counts of making indecent images of children.
He was also ordered to complete a rehabilitation programme, probation supervision for two years, made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for five years and put on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.