BRITAIN: A former British Crown Court judge is facing jail after admitting a string of child pornography offences.
David Selwood (69) pleaded guilty at London's Bow Street Magistrates Court to 12 counts of making and one count of possessing indecent photographs of children in March and April this year. Police found 75 images of naked and semi-naked boys aged between eight and 14 on Selwood's laptop computer. The former circuit judge, from Winchester, Hampshire, maintained he had no sexual interest in young children, insisting he had accessed child abuse websites out of "curiosity".
The court was told that the public loss of face had a "devastating and humiliating" effect on the former circuit judge and his family. But police said there was a clear "public interest" in bringing Selwood, who stepped down as resident judge at Portsmouth Crown Court earlier this month, to court. He answered when asked whether he wanted to make a plea after the 13 counts were read out: "I intend to plead guilty to all of those charges."
Selwood then sat down while the prosecution lawyer Amanda Sawetz read extracts from a statement he had prepared for police.
"He gave as the reason for visiting such sites curiosity to see how easy or difficult it was for someone with limited computer skills such as himself to find such images on the Internet," she said.
Earlier this year, Selwood cleared a world authority on child abuse, who pleaded guilty to downloading child pornography, of having any illegal intent behind his actions. The judge described Prof Christopher Bagley, of Lesley Gardens, Sutton, Surrey, as "naive" for accessing the indecent images without seeking legal advice or consulting colleagues.
The Crown Prosecution Service said there were no plans to review Selwood's decisions on similar cases in light of his conviction. Selwood was arrested on April 21st following intelligence from the US concerning access to a website which sold images of children being abused.
A similar alert from the US led to the arrest in Ireland of Judge Brian Curtin, who was acquitted on the directions of his trial judge but is now the subject of impeachment proceedings.
On June 2nd, Selwood resigned as a circuit judge, a position he had held since 1992.