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A Solihull doctor has escaped a jail sentence after being caught with 11,000 indecent images of children.

A court heard consultant anaesthetist Emil Guirguis, 59, “dredged the darkest recesses” of the internet for vile snaps of abused children.

His secret double life was finally exposed when police raided his £400,000 Solihull home and another in Staffordshire to seize laptops and hard-drives.

They found he had searched for pornography on the internet, collecting more than 11,000 indecent images of children and 1,028 extreme porn images.

Guirguis admitted three offences of possessing indecent images of children; three offences of making indecent images of children; and one offence of possessing extreme pornographic images.

The court heard he had 35 years experience at the Royal Stoke University Hospital and Birmingham Heartlands Hospital and has since retired from the profession. He was handed a three-year community order with a requirement to comply with the internet sex offender treatment programme. He was also was made the subject of a five-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order and will be on the sex offenders’ register for the same period.

He was also barred from working with children or vulnerable adults.

Sentencing him at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court, Judge Timothy Smith said: “You are somebody who has lived a double life.

“Each of the images that you downloaded were images of real children.

“It defies belief. You have brought shame upon yourself, your family and your profession.”

Guirguis told a probation officer he did not get any sexual gratification from looking at the images.

He also claimed he did not realise what he was doing was illegal or that the victims were being abused.

Arvind Sharma, defending, said he was a very well-respected doctor who had “gone over and beyond the call of duty” and had worked voluntarily in Ethiopia.

Mr Sharma said: “His colleagues speak of him in glowing terms. Sadly at the same time he has been engaging in the enterprise of accessing these images.

“There are a large number of images and they show young children in distress. He now fully appreciates the harm of his actions.

“He is thoroughly ashamed of himself. He had taken a considerable fall from grace. No doubt he will be struck off by the General Medical Council (GMC) in due course.”