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A MILITANT atheist was found guilty of leaving grossly offensive religious images in a prayer room at Liverpool's John Lennon airport.

Jurors took just 15 minutes to convict Harry Taylor, 59, of leaving obscene material depicting figures from Christianity and Islam, often in sexual poses, in the multi-faith room with the intention of causing harassment and alarm.

Taylor, who labelled himself a “militant atheist” admitted placing the items in the prayer room on three separate occasions, but insisted he was simply practising his own religion of “reason and rationality”.

Taylor told jurors he had left the items in the room in memory of “his hero” John Lennon before reciting the words from the song Imagine.

He said: “The airport is named after one of my heroes and his view on religion was pretty much the same as mine. I thought it was an insult to his memory to have a prayer room in his airport.”

Giving evidence in his own defence, Taylor admitted being “strongly anti-religious” after being treated badly by the Catholic Brothers as a boy growing up in Dublin.

But he insisted people would only be offended if their faith was “weak” and that the images were meant as satire.

But the jury of 10 women and two men, who all swore their oath on the Bible, rejected his defence.

They had heard from airport chaplain Nicky Lees who told of her alarm after finding the images.

She said: “I was insulted, deeply offended and I was alarmed.”

As the unanimous verdicts were delivered, smartly-dressed Taylor simply raised an eye-brow, but showed no other emotion.

Taylor, of Griffin Street, Salford, Greater Manchester, declined to comment after his conviction on all three counts of religiously aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress from November 2, 26, and December 12, 2008. Earlier in the day he had posed for a photographer outside court.

Neville Biddle, prosecuting, who had told Liverpool crown court jurors they were acting as the “conscience of our society” revealed Taylor already has two convictions from May 18, 2006 for using abusive, insulting words or behaviour.

He told how on that occasion Taylor had left similar offensive material in St Anne's Church in the centre of Manchester.

Judge Charles James said he wanted to know all the details from Taylor’s previous convictions. He also ordered a pre-sentence reported be prepared on him, but gave no indication of the sentence.

The judge granted Taylor bail until sentencing on April 23 with a condition not to enter John Lennon airport.