Outrage as former Cameron aide walks free after ‘indecent images’ convictions

Last Updated: June 2, 2016By
Patrick Rock had denied all the charges against him [Image: PA].

Patrick Rock had denied all the charges against him [Image: PA].

That’s right – more than two years after he was originally arrested, David Cameron’s former aide Patrick Rock is free as a bird, despite having been convicted on five counts of making indecent images of children.

(For clarity: Making, in this case, apparently means downloading pictures.)

There is, quite naturally, considerable outrage among the general public about this – and rightly so.

It’s all very well to say he only downloaded pictures of girls aged less than 18 in sexualised clothing and poses – but has anybody considered how those images were made in the first place?

Who took those photos? How else have they used the girls in the images? By downloading them, Patrick Rock – a close friend and policy advisor of David Cameron who is supposed to have worked on ways of filtering child pornography out of the Internet – condones the way these girls were used (and I employ that word advisedly).

Then there’s the attempt to cover-up the fact that he was arrested at all. Remember, this deputy director of the 10 Downing Street policy unit was allowed to find out about the allegations against him before the police came knocking on his door, giving him time to resign from his position with the Conservative-led Coalition government on February 12, 2014, prior to his arrest the following day.

Details of his arrest were not passed on to the media for nearly three weeks, and it seems unlikely that they would have been released at all if the Daily Mail had not started asking questions about Rock.

That’s right – the Daily Mail; the newspaper whose website has a column running down every page featuring photos of young women, usually scantily-clad. What irony.

Prior to his arrest, it seems Rock had been “top of the list” to be nominated for a place in the House of Lords. It seems David Cameron, his government, and the authorities in general wanted this matter simply to go away.

The fact is that crime involving ‘level C’ imagery (sexualised images of children with no adults involved) attracts only a community penalty at most.

It is wrong. Loss of reputation and public humiliation is nothing compared to what may have happened to the girls in the images.

Why has nothing been said about them?

A former aide to Prime Minister David Cameron, Patrick Rock, has been given a two-year conditional discharge over indecent images of children.

The ex-deputy director of policy at Downing Street was convicted on Wednesday of five charges and acquitted of three similar counts.

The jury was unable to reach a verdict on the remaining 12 charges.

Rock, 65, had admitted downloading 20 images of nine young girls in 2013, but denied they were indecent.

Although he will not serve time in prison, Judge Alistair McCreath said Rock’s punishment was “the loss of your reputation and your very public humiliation”.

“I have not lost sight of the obvious reality that right-thinking people will quite properly consider that those who did what you did should be punished for it.

“You should be. And you have been… It is a punishment which you brought on yourself, but is nonetheless a very real one. And it is one that is utterly merited.”

The court heard that the youngest of the girls in the pictures was aged just 10 years and four months when he downloaded the image – meaning she would have been younger when it was taken.

Rock must register as a sex offender for two years and was also banned from using a device with the internet unless it can retain his browsing history and he surrenders it for inspection by police over the same period.

Source: Ex-PM aide Patrick Rock given conditional discharge over child images – BBC News

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11 Comments

  1. NMac June 2, 2016 at 11:36 am - Reply

    Whitewash yet again. I suspected this would probably happen.

  2. Mrs Grimble June 2, 2016 at 11:45 am - Reply

    “For clarity: For clarity: Making, in this case, apparently means downloading pictures.”
    There is no ‘apparently’ about it – that’s the legal term; the computer “makes” any image that it downloads. If he had actually taken the pictures himself, that’s what the charge would have made clear.
    You ask “What happened to the girls in the images?” We already know – the photos did not involve any abuse. He downloaded them while on a visit to the US, from a legal US-based website. They were all pictures of girls in swimwear and underwear and US police – who investigated Rock originally – did not consider any of them pornographic or illegal.
    There is not the slightest shred of evidence that Rock ever abused a child, or caused the abuse of a child. We’re rapidly approaching the point where people are being prosecuted for thought crimes.

    • Mike Sivier June 2, 2016 at 1:33 pm - Reply

      If you had been reading this blog and its comments, you would know that the legal wording has changed recently in acceptance of the fact that most people believe “making” to involve the actual creation of the image, not merely downloading it.
      As for the girls in the images – I did not know the information that you provide. Please provide a link to proof that no abuse has ever happened to these girls.
      I see you are part of this backlash that appears to be happening in the comment column. Who sent you here?

    • mohandeer June 2, 2016 at 3:45 pm - Reply

      Well Mrs. Grimble. For clarity’s sake, perhaps you too like looking at little boys in their undies and swimming trunks? Or maybe your thing is also little girls clad sexily? If so please advise so that I can alert all people who might know of you, of your predisposition and they can make sure you never get near any of their children. The thought of lascivious individuals getting aroused looking at little girls/boys makes most women squirm. For clarity’s sake, there would be no other reason for a grown man of Rock’s age to have downloaded such pictures and that is why there is uproar.

    • Tim Birch June 5, 2016 at 12:54 pm - Reply

      Mrs Grimble, deliberately downloading images of 9 year old children in underwear is hardly a “thought crime”. If that is what the images genuinely were.

      Please provide a reference for your claims, because I haven’t seen those details elsewhere so far, and I am not inclined to believe statements of “fact” made by unverifyable, semi-anonymous internet accounts.

      Also, like Mike Sivier, I too am interested in who sent you here.

  3. Roland Laycock June 2, 2016 at 12:01 pm - Reply

    Well well thats just made me some money,

  4. Dez June 2, 2016 at 1:51 pm - Reply

    Brilliant…..good to see justice is still alive ‘n kicking….not for the plebs that is. With that sort of dodgy, but ok it’s only soft stuff let off, he might still be in with a chance of a knighthood!!. Pity he appears to have the fore knowledge of the police raid (why??) who knows what dark computer equipment /pics may have actually been found had they gone in unannounced. But hey can’t have police raids, dodgy pics found on someone so close to the pig lover…..otherwise the population might think the ruling Cons really are over run with dodgy low life folk. Sad but very predictable result from the lying puppet masters……over two years wait just to ensure public interest had gone away sufficiently for a quiet exit position.

    • Mike Sivier June 2, 2016 at 1:56 pm - Reply

      Yeah, that didn’t work, did it?

  5. jeffrey davies June 2, 2016 at 2:06 pm - Reply

    norman law again protect thy freinds

  6. Sandra Bowes-Rennox June 3, 2016 at 5:42 pm - Reply

    Disgraceful…another tory pervert and not a day in prison..I say that the DPP should review this disgusting outcome..those poor children.

  7. Bookworm June 3, 2016 at 9:21 pm - Reply

    What did he get rid of before the police arrived? We will never know. Who told him the police were on their way? We will never know that either. No justice.

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