England
19 April 2011 Last updated at 17:30 GMT 
Andrew Laycock was head of legal services at Hertfordshire County Council
A former council head of legal services who admitted using child pornography has been spared jail.
Andrew Laycock, of Hertford, previously pleaded guilty to possessing more than 5,700 indecent images and 17 counts of making indecent images of children.At St Albans Crown Court, Judge Andrew Bright QC sentenced the 58-year-old retired Hertfordshire County Council officer to 26 weeks in prison.
Giving him credit for his plea, he suspended the sentence for two years.
Laycock, of Mandeville Road, was given a two-year supervision order and must attend an internet sex offenders treatment programme.
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Prosecutor Peter ShawHe admitted the fantasies involved children as young as seven or eight”
Prosecutor Peter Shaw told the court that police armed with a search warrant raided the home Laycock shared with his wife and two stepsons on 22 June last year.
Laycock's computer was analysed and found to contain illegal images, mostly of girls aged between 10 and 14.In a police interview, Laycock confessed that he had been attracted to children for decades.
"He said he had interacted with other adults on MSN messenger and had talked to other adults about having sex with children," said Mr Shaw.
"He admitted the fantasies involved children as young as seven or eight."
Dee Connolly, defending, said Laycock had taken the advice police gave him at the time of his interview and attended courses at the Lucy Faithful Foundation.
It aims to rid people of their addiction to child sex abuse images.
Laycock worked at Hertfordshire County Council until October 2009.
It is not thought he committed any offences while at work, the Crown Prosecution Service has said previously.
Judge Bright told Laycock: "You built your reputation up as a lawyer and have rightly lost it as a result of what you were secretly doing."
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How come no-one has questioned how this MUST have affected this mans ability to carry out his job for decades - beaing in mind that as Head of Legal Services he would have the ultimate say in who should be investigated & prosecuted for child sex abuse? This was his job!!
ReplyDeleteAre people just naive or do they think you can have such an obsession & it not affect the way in which you conduct your business?
Should there not be an inquiry into the decisions he made whilst in this post?
It presents a conflict of interest of a very serious nature.
What seems to have been missed in this case & in the media is that his role as Head of Legal Services at HCC meant that he was ultimately responsible for the prosecution of child sex offenders and would have the ultimate say in which cases would be pursued.
ReplyDeleteHow could his personal interests in this area NOT affect the way in which he carried out these duties to the public??
I bet there are at least a few Social Workers & members of the public who have been confused if not stunned at a decision by the local authority NOT to prosecute child sex cases.
If the person in charge of the prosecution team is an offender himself how would this NOT affect his judgement and decision making. Especially as he conversed with sex offenders in 'chat rooms'?