Photographer Prosecuted for Fairy 'Child Porn'

A "NAIVE" photographer employed by parents to take naked pictures of their young daughters to turn into images of fairies has been prosecuted because the photos fell under the definition of child porn.
Dr Marcus Jonathan Phillips was arrested after staff at a branch of Bonusprint alerted police after he took the photos in to be developed.

He was sentenced to 150-hours community service today by a judge who said there was "never a sexual motive" for the photos which had been ordered by the parents who were present while most were taken.

The judge had heard Phillips, a 38-year-old tutor at Sheffield University, ran a photography business in his spare time which specialised in turning photographs of clients into 'ethereal' images of fairies.

As well as using professional models he also took commissions from women who wanted to be photographed in the same way.

When the father-of-three, of Crimicar Lane, Sheffield, was asked by the parents of two young girls for pictures to be made of their daughters - who were both aged between 10 and 12 - he agreed to carry out the work.

The commission involved taking close-up shorts of various parts of their bodies, which were then superimposed on top of each other, to create the fairy images. The girls' parents were present at some of the photo shoots.

Since the photographs were of young naked girls and fall under the definition of indecent images of children by law, Phillips pleaded guilty to four counts of making indecent images of children and one count of possessing indecent images of children.

Passing sentence, Judge Lawler QC added: "You always acted perfectly properly and their parents were perfectly law-abiding, sensible people who cared for their children.

"What is clear is that you had no base motive, no sexual motive and there was not any question of deriving sexual gratification from what you were doing."

Phillips will not have to sign the sex offenders' register.

Yorkshire Post