Locations
Brownsea Road, Sandbanks, Poole, Dorset, BH13
Description
A CHILD psychiatrist has been struck off after he was caught with more than 2,000 indecent images of children which he claimed he viewed to help him ease stress.
Doctor Adrian Marsden's child porn collection was built over 10 years until he was found out when an amateur dramatics coach helped him download a smartphone app to learn his lines.
The NHS children's mental health specialist, who collected images of kids as young as eight, admitted he had a fetish and claimed he looked at his stash "in times of trauma".
In June last year Marsden, of Brownsea Road, Poole, avoided jail following criminal proceedings into the possession of the indecent images but now he has been struck off the GMC's medical register following a tribunal.
The Medical Practitioners Tribunal ruled Marsden who had worked at Pebble Lodge NHS treatment centre in Westbourne, "breached a fundamental tenet of the profession".
Tribunal chair Margaret Obi, sitting in Manchester, said: "Dr Marsden’s conduct fell far below the standard expected of a registered medical practitioner.
"The Tribunal was satisfied that the nature and seriousness of Dr Marsden’s conviction is fundamentally incompatible with continued registration.
"Downloading and viewing child sex abuse materials seriously undermines patients’ and the public’s trust and confidence in the medical profession."
Marsden, a married father-of-two, was caught with 1,982 Category C images and 42 more serious prohibited images showing 'corporal punishment' of children on his computer which were stockpiled between May 2010 and January 2020.
The 60-year-old admitted making indecent photos of children and possessing prohibited images of children at Poole Magistrates' Court and was fined £2,500, given a community order with rehabilitation activity and placed on the Sex Offenders' Register for five years.
Lawyer David Hurley, mitigating Marsden at the time, said: "He deleted some of the images as he knew what he was doing was wrong but like a smoker who is trying to quit smoking who keeps some cigarettes he kept some.
"These, he looked at in times of trauma, such as when he was suffering depression in late 2017 and 2018 after being criticised at an inquest of a young person took her own life.
"Dr Marsden separated his professional and private life and never acted upon it (his urges) through contact with children."
Marsden, who qualified in 1984, tried to have his latest tribunal hearing held in private, moaning that reports of his offences from his court case last year "elicited a hostile response from the public which included direct threats of harm".
However, his application was refused, with the tribunal ruling "Marsden’s concerns were insufficient to outweigh the public interest in conducting the hearing in public".