An experienced plastic surgeon stored dozens of serious category child abuse images in his phone, a court heard.
Mansoor Khan, 53, has been facing three charges of making indecent images of children following an investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA).
He was arrested and suspended from Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust in August last year, having joined it in 2009.
Salisbury Crown Court heard that 106 illegal images were found on his phone, including 31 belonging to category A – the most serious category. Some 14 images relate to category B and 61 to category C.
However, investigators found none of the images found on his phone was related to his patients or his clinical job at the University Hospital Southampton where he worked between 2012 and 2021.
The surgeon who specialises in reconstructive surgery, facial rejuvenation and body contouring had downloaded a Tor browser in November 2020 to access the dark web, Salisbury Crown Court heard.
Khan has denied the charges brought against him, claiming he accessed the dark web to tell his children about its dangers.
Prosecutor Charles Gabb said the surgeon gave in to “sexual temptation” several times.
“The sexual temptation he allowed himself to give into was watching and seeing and perhaps fantasising about indecent images of children,” Gabb said.
According to him, anyone who sees such images by “misfortune” will never willingly see them again unless they like them.
“The defendant projected an image of a pillar of society, someone worthy of respect, but he was nursing a very deep and sordid secret,” the prosecutor said.
The court made it clear that the case related to “making” illegal images – a process by which a media device creates a copy of an image onto its memory” – and not taking an original photograph.
