A former deputy editor of the Sunday Express has been jailed for three months after being found guilty of downloading child pornography from the internet.
Andrew Bull left the paper “by mutual agreement” in March after it emerged that he was being questioned as part of the Operation Ore child porn investigation.
Bull’s name was one of the thousands passed on to British police by US investigators who found a list of subscribers to a child porn website.
The 47-year-old father of two from Ealing, West London, issued a statement through his wife putting blame on internet service providers for “selling us a gateway to the internet and facilitating the search for that illegal material”. He said: “I became one of the addicts. An addict’s habit is fed by dealers.”
Bull appeared for sentence at Isleworth Crown Court and had earlier admitted four charges of making indecent images of children.
A total of 237 images were found by police on three different computers owned by Bull.
Defence counsel Ben Summers, said: “This is a man who has sought out care and there is a low risk of his re-offending. He came to this material through an addiction to adult pornography in the first place. There were over 6,000 images of adult porn on his computers.”
Judge Hezlett Colgan said: “Those who are prepared to have this material make it profitable for others to abuse children. Only a custodial sentence is appropriate for such offences. But I bear in mind that you and your family have suffered a great deal already”.
Bull is the second senior journalist from Express Newspapers who is currently behind bars.
Last month football writer Rob Shepherd was jailed for 14 months after being found guilty of biting a man on the cheek during a fight in a bar. He is appealing against the sentence.
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