A former aide to Prime Minister David Cameron has been convicted of downloading pictures of scantily-clad girls as young as 10 in sexual poses. Patrick Rock, who turned 65 on Wednesday, faced 20 charges of making an indecent photograph of a child. Rock, of Fulham, south-west London, had claimed the 20 images he downloaded on to his iPad over three days in August 2013 were not indecent. But the jury in his trial at Southwark Crown Court in London took more than eight hours to convict him of five counts.
He was acquitted of three similar charges, while jurors were unable to agree on 12 other counts and were discharged, meaning the charges will lie of file.
Judge Alistair McCreath directed the jurors that majority verdicts could be accepted on the remaining counts.
Jurors were told on Tuesday they would have to decide whether or not the pictures broke the law.
They were shown the images, which featured identified girls aged 10 to 16 posing in clothing including bikinis, hot pants and a bra, suspenders and a ballet tutu. The prosecution argued the images showed girls, although not naked, in “sexual” poses that drew attention to their genital and breast areas. But Rock’s defence lawyer, Sasha Wass QC, compared the images to Britney Spears’ video for her 1998 song Baby One More Time, which she made when she was 16.
Source: The Telegraph
