‘Worst ever’ paedophile doctor gets 22-years

Myles Bradbury, 41, from Herringswell, Suffolk, worked as a paediatric consultant haematologist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, where he carried out medical examinations on boys “purely for his own sexual gratification”, Cambridge Crown Court heard.

All of the victims suffered from leukaemia, haemophilia or other serious conditions. Some have since died.

He filmed some of them using a spy pen and abused others behind a curtain while their parents were in the room.

He pleaded guilty to 25 offences, including sexual assault, voyeurism and possessing more than 16,000 indecent images, against boys aged between 10 and 16.

Bradbury showed little emotion as he was jailed today.

Placing him on the sex offenders register for life and making him subject to a sexual offences prevention order, Judge Gareth Hawkesworth said: “I have never come across a more culpable and grave course of sexual criminality which has involved such a gross and grotesque breach and betrayal of your Hippocratic Oath and trust reposed in you by your patients, their families and colleagues.

“There are almost too many aggravating features to enumerate in this prolonged, carefully planned, cruel and persistent campaign of abuse.

“At the top of this comes the breach of trust.

“Your colleagues remain guilt ridden at having been unable to detect your offending earlier and having been successfully manipulated by you into ignorance.

“Your actions have undermined public trust in an already overstretched health service and have caused enormous expense and upheaval in the internal inquiries that inevitably followed your suspension from practice.

“All this almost pales into insignificance set against the trauma, fear and distress you have caused to your victims and their families - considerable psychological harm, I have no doubt - which I suspect will linger with them for the rest of their lives.”

The sentence means Bradbury will never see his daughter, born during the police investigation, unsupervised.

He was sacked from his job earlier this year and will never work as a doctor again, the court heard.

Prosecutor John Farmer said the defendant had a “long-standing, unlawful, sexual interest in boys”.

He added: “The defendant, through the trust he had acquired, circumvented the procedures and encourages a number of young patients to see him alone.

“It was in these circumstance under the guise of legitimate examinations he went entirely beyond the bounds.”

He abused the boys “for his own personal gratification”.

“On some occasions, when he failed to exclude the parent, he simply carried on behind the curtain behind which the boy had gone to remove his clothes.”

The offences took place over four and a half years, beginning within six months of him taking up his post in 2008 and continuing to the day he was suspended when the first concerns were raised.

At some point, he began using a camera pen in an attempt to gain images of the boys when partially clothed, Mr Farmer added.

Police found 170,425 images on this pen but none of these were classed as indecent.

Mr Farmer explained Bradbury was first arrested in December 2013 after police were alerted by Canadian authorities that he had bought a DVD containing indecent images of children as part of Operation Spade.

At that point Cambridgeshire Police were already investigating after concerns were raised about his conduct.

Bradbury, who, the court heard, was also involved in church and Scout groups, was described as “a man of great charm and persuasiveness” whom everybody trusted.

When one victim raised concerns with his mother, she responded: “He’s a doctor, it must be necessary.”

Mr Farmer said: “That was the very image that really protected him from anything other than the most persistent line of complaint.”

In mitigation, Angela Rafferty said Bradbury’s guilty pleas had spared his victims the ordeal of giving evidence in court.

She added: “Clearly on a human level something has gone very badly wrong in this man’s life and thought processes.”

She said Bradbury seemed to have repressed homosexual feelings during puberty and this influenced his behaviour.

Ms Rafferty added that he accepted what he did was “repugnant”.

“He knows he will not get any understanding or forgiveness because what he did was unforgivable,” she said.

Detective Superintendent Gary Ridgway, from Cambridgeshire Police, said: “This case has understandably caused distress to many people.

“Bradbury was highly respected and revered by the families of his victims, who trusted him implicitly.

“But he betrayed that trust in an appalling way, by carrying out examinations purely for his own sexual gratification.

“The investigation into his crimes was complex and challenging, and I want to acknowledge the support provided by Cambridge University Hospitals in order to gather the evidence to bring this case to court.

“I would also like to pay tribute to the victims and their families who have shown great bravery in coming forward and ensuring Bradbury was held to account.”

The Crown Prosecution Service in the East of England said the offences were “one of the worst” cases of a breach of trust it had ever prosecuted.