July 2019
NHS doctor has been struck off after his wife discovered child sexual abuse images on his laptop
An NHS doctor has been struck off after his wife discovered child sexual abuse images on his laptop while trying to watch Game of Thrones.
Dr Christopher Ball-Nossa, 35, was arrested and found guilty of six charges of possessing indecent images after his wife found the file titled ‘child porn 3-16’ and handed the device to police last June.
A search of his laptop uncovered more than 1,500 indecent images – including 22 movies and 196 photographs of the most serious type of child abuse.
Ball-Nossa was handed a two-year community order and told to participate in a sex offender programme – but escaped jail.
But he has been suspended from his position at University Hospital Coventry, West Midlands, and banned indefinitely from practising as a doctor by a disciplinary panel hearing his case.
The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service hearing in Manchester said Ball-Nossa’s impulses to view indecent images of children is a ‘fundamental breach of the public’s trust in doctors’.
Tribunal chairman Geoffrey Payne said: ‘The Tribunal considered that a reasonable and well-informed member of the public would be horrified to learn that a doctor had downloaded indecent images of children.’
It also emerged that Ball-Nossa’s wife made a similarly grim discovery a decade ago.
She claims she found sick images of children in the recycle bin of the same laptop, but says that her husband passed them off as ‘pop ups’ that had appeared when he tried to play online video games.
Mr Payne added: ‘It was further noted that, although this was Dr Ball-Nossa’s first offence, there is evidence to suggest that [his wife] found similar material on his laptop nine years previously.
‘The evidence before the Tribunal suggests that Dr Ball-Nossa’s impulses to view indecent images of children is an entrenched problem that has been ongoing throughout his adult life.’
The panel slammed Ball-Nossa for his ‘implausible’ defence that he only viewed the sick images to ‘calm himself’ when stressed.
Mr Payne added: ”It was of particular concern that Dr Ball-Nossa claimed that he was not viewing these images for sexual gratification, but instead described using these images as a way to ‘calm’ himself.
‘The Tribunal does not accept that that was the purpose, because it considered such an account to be inherently implausible.
‘Even if Dr Ball-Nossa was using these images to ‘calm’ himself, he has not provided any evidence to show how he will avoid looking at similar images in future if he finds himself in a stressful situation.
‘The Tribunal considered this of particular relevance given the stressful nature of his job as a medical practitioner.’
It was also heard Ball-Nossa had admitted to having first had ‘inappropriate thoughts’ about children at just 17 years old.
Mr Payne added: ‘Accordingly, and bearing all of the above in mind, the Tribunal determined that Dr Ball-Nossa’s fitness to practise is impaired by reason of his conviction.
‘The Tribunal considered the criminal behaviour that gave rise to Dr Ball-Nossa’s conviction involves a fundamental breach of the public’s trust in doctors, and has inevitably brought the profession into disrepute.
‘It has therefore been determined that Dr Ball-Nossa’s name be erased from the Medical Register.’
January 2019
NHS doctor, 35, arrested after his wife found child abuse images stash on his laptop while watching Game of Thrones then handed computer to police avoids jail
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