Former doctor jailed for child sex offences

Matthew Isles was jailed for three years and 10 months, at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court

A former hospital consultant who had more than 90,000 images of children has been jailed for more than three years.

Dr Matthew Isles, who worked as an ear, nose and throat specialist, had built up a "staggeringly vast" collection of images over five years, Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court was told on Wednesday.

The 53-year-old also tried to engage in sexual conversation with someone he believed was a 14-year-old boy, the court heard.

Judge Richard McConaghy jailed Isles for three years and 10 months in relation to 13 offences in all.

The consultant, who had worked at the Royal Stoke University Hospital and County Hospital in Stafford and had a 22-year career in the armed forces before that, admitted the charges at a previous hearing.

They included two counts of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child, voyeurism, three counts of making indecent images of children, possession of a paedophile manual, three counts of distributing indecent images of children, possession of prohibited images of children and two counts of possessing extreme pornographic images.

"Each and every image depicts a real child suffering real sexual abuse, some of it of the most depraved kind imaginable," the judge said.

Prosecution counsel Hunter Gray told the court that Isles engaged in "sexually explicit conversation of a grooming nature" with an undercover officer posing as a 14-year-old boy on a gay dating site between 25 January and 6 February.

While he initially ended the chat after finding out the age of the boy he believed he was speaking to, saying he did not want to be sent to prison, Isles later continued the conversation, which involved chatting about "hooking up".

When officers visited Isles' address in Whiston, near Cheadle, Staffordshire, on 10 February, a large quantity of items were seized, including more than 90,000 images and videos on different devices.

He also had voyeuristic images in a folder called "Spycam", featuring him and a woman he had filmed without her knowledge or consent.

Also on his devices were a "paedophile manual" with instructions on how to abuse children and images that had been distributed on at least three different platforms.

'Plainly disgusting'

Mr Gray said a "high volume" of images were found, including 1,978 category A images, 1,317 category B images, 2,134 category C images and 459 prohibited images of children, with many more that had not been categorised.

In police interview, Isles admitted having an "addiction to sex, pornography and child abuse material and an addiction to collecting child sex abuse images" over the space of five years, Mr Gray said.

Defence barrister Phil Bradley KC said Isles had made efforts to address his behaviour.

"His career is in tatters, he simply cannot go back. The impact of his offending is felt by his family and friends who continue to support him," Mr Bradley said.

"Some of the material was plainly disgusting, there is no getting behind that. Real children and real people were involved and concerned."

Judge McConaghy said Isles, who waved at a woman in the public gallery as he was sent down, must serve half of his sentence in custody before he could be released on licence.

A sexual harm prevention order without limit of time was also imposed.

The University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust (UHNM) said in February that it was fully co-operating with the police in their investigation and has since confirmed that Isles was no longer one of its employees.