Consultant who viewed images of child sexual abuse receives suspended sentence

A consultant anaesthetist who said he turned to viewing images of child sexual abuse to combat stress from working in an intensive care unit has been sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for two years.

Richard Johnson, 54, had been collecting images of children being sexually abused for eight years when his offending was discovered by police after he mistakenly uploaded an image on to the social media website Pinterest.

West Yorkshire police found that he had more than 54 000 sexual images of children on four computer devices, of which 335 were category A, the most extreme category. Of the category A images, 69 were videos.

He pleaded guilty …