AN 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown comic who downloaded more than 35,000 indecent images of children has avoided jail.
Christopher Thomas Binns pleaded guilty last November to five counts of making indecent images of children and one of possessing a prohibited image.
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Christopher Binns on Channel 4’s panel show 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown as his character, hospital DJ Ivan Brackenbury
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Christopher Thomas Binns pleaded guilty last November to five counts of making indecent images of childrenCredit: Getty
Derby Crown Court heard the 53-year-old was found to have thousands of images on multiple devices, downloaded between March 26 and November 21, 2020.
Lauren Fisher, prosecuting, said 104 category A indecent images – the most serious – were found, along with 411 in category B and 34,946 in category C.
Ms Fisher also said three prohibited images were found, along with “multiple” category B and C moving images.
However, Judge Sean Smith KC warned that some of the images may have been duplicates.
A warrant was executed at Binns’s home in Calow, Derbyshire, and he was arrested, with 39 devices seized including a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and an iPad.
Devices Binns asked his partner to sell were also retrieved.
These included two hard drives with thousands of accessible and inaccessible images, including 25,000 inaccessible category C images.
Matthew Hayes, mitigating, said Binns had not committed any other offences since this incident and referenced the impact of prescribed medication his client was taking at the time.
In an earlier statement to the comedy news website Chortle, Binns said at the time he had an “overdose of prescription drugs for ADHD” which “induced obsessive-compulsive disorder”.
He added: “I downloaded and deleted a very large amount of adult pornography over a short period of time.
“Within those downloads, it appears there was some child pornography which I had not sought out nor wanted.
“I have no sexual interest in children. I have taken and passed a polygraph stating I have no sexual interest in children.”
Judge Smith said Binns’s offending was “simply unacceptable” but deemed he does not pose a risk to the public, and is unlikely to re-offend.
He added: “You are sickened by what it was that you were downloading and looking at and, quite frankly, you don’t need me to tell you that you should be, because this kind of offending has real victims.
“It is right to say that had it not been for Covid, had it not been for the medication you were taking at that period of time, you would not be before the court, but the fact is that you are.”
He gave Binns a combined 10-month sentence, suspended for 15 months.
Binns has also been made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order and ordered to sign the sex offenders register, both for 10 years.
Binns’s character Ivan Brackenbury was nominated at the Edinburgh Festival for the Edinburgh Comedy Award 2007, and he has also appeared on BBC drama Spooks and Channel 4’s IT Crowd.
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