Surgeon accused of having indecent images of children

Dr Raed Al-Mobayed worked at the Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil when he allegedly downloaded the pictures

A surgeon has been accused of possessing 153 indecent images of children with nine of them in the most serious category.

Dr Raed Al-Mobayed, 45, of Llanelli, is charged with possessing indecent images of children and three extreme pornographic videos.

The images were allegedly downloaded between 2008 and 2009, while he was working at the Prince Charles hospital in Merthyr Tydfil.

He denies both the charges against him.

Prosecutor James Evans told the jury at Swansea’s nightingale court that the defendant had separated from his partner Zoe Middleton in 2017.

He said his partner reported the laptop to the police after finding it in the attic of the surgeon’s former home when she was taking down Christmas decorations.

Mr Evans said his ex-partner, who the defendant has a child with, was now living in the property in Cardiff with her new partner.

He said internet searches showed that the defendant searched for a BMW on Autotrader on his birthday on 29 April, 2009, and went on to buy that BMW. He also made searches for Autotrader, credit expert, and the NHS jobs website.

A police investigation found two category A videos of children and three videos of extreme pornography, along with nine category A images, 15 category B images and 129 category C images.

The prosecution says their case will be built around the defendant’s internet searches for material when he must have been using the computer.

Mr Evans said the defendant was interviewed by the police "on a number of occasions where he admitted owning the laptop but denied knowledge of the images".

He added that the defendant said the laptop was used by other people including his ex-partner.

Dr Raed Al-Mobayed denies all the charges against him

Jessica Rowland of South Wales Police said in August 2009 the laptop had been used to search for “pre teens” and several other websites were searched for including one called “Lolita” which was kept as a favourite on the laptop.

There was a folder called BMW on the laptop which included two folders containing indecent images of children, she said, and the password to the folder was either changed or added on 18 August to "sexaholic" with the reminder hint set to "what am I".

Three extreme pornographic videos were also on the laptop which feature a female carrying out a sex act on a dog.

Nigel Fryer, for the defence, said that the laptop was 20 years old and had not been used since 2011.

He said the technology was antiquated by todays’ standards and security features were basic.

The court heard many multiples of the images were made on the laptop by thumbnails which would be created automatically by the computer.

Ms Rowland said there were four unique images in category A, five unique images in category B and 97 images in category C.

"There was in excess of 80,000 images from a company's icons to photographs, a whole range of images, none which were illegal," Mr Fryer added.

Aneurin Bevan University Health Board said he has been excluded from the workplace pending the outcome of the court case.

The trial continues.

This article originally stated the offences occurred between 2006-09 after these dates were read in court. They have since been corrected to 2008-09 by the court, which has now been reflected in this article.