A leading plastic surgeon has been found with more than a hundred “abhorrent and perverted” images of children on his phone after “giving in to his dark side”, a court has been told.
Mansoor Khan, who worked in two NHS hospitals, had previously been known “pillar of society” and coached a girls’ rugby team. But a jury was told on Monday that the father-of-four was “leading a double life”, having allegedly accessed pornographic sites to download dozens of “revolting” images.
Police traced Mr Khan’s actions back to him via a digital trail from a Snapchat account. He was arrested while at home with his wife in Salisbury in August last year, and told officers at the time that he had been accessing the dark web out of “curiosity” and to “protect” his children from its dangers.
The 54-year-old had “turned a vice into a virtue”, Salisbury Crown Court was told.
Jurors heard he also used encrypted sites to message people and repeatedly accessed sexually explicit images of children on his mobile phone.
The seasoned surgeon, who worked in both Salisbury District Hospital and University Hospital Southampton, specialises in reconstructive surgery, breast surgery, body contouring and “facial rejuvenation.”
He denies three charges of making indecent photos of a child between 10 December 2020 and 24 August 2021.
The three charges are separated by the severity of the images found. 31 were classed as category A images – the most serious - 14 category B, and 61 category C.
Charles Gabb, prosecuting, told a jury that Mr Khan thought that by viewing the images secretly on his phone he would never be caught.
“‘I can resist anything but temptation’, words uttered by one of this nation’s greatest wordsmiths - Oscar Wilde,” Mr Gabb said.
“Temptation makes a fool of all of us, it is a great human leveler, but it’s how you deal with temptation that makes the man or woman and in this case the temptation into which Mr Khan gave into was sex.
“Ordinarily sex is beautiful, fantastic and pleasurable, but there are elements to a person’s sex drive which have a dark side.
“It is not a side an individual likes to make known to friends or family and quite rightly so.
“You can battle temptation if you want to, but still the sexual temptation for Mr Khan was such that he gave into it not once, not twice, but many times over.
“The temptation was watching, seeing and perhaps fantasising about children.”
Mr Gabb told jurors that the “abhorrent” material was viewed “so often” by the eminent plastic surgeon that it “must have done it for pleasure.”
Mr Gabb, who told jurors that 31 of the 106 found in Mr Khan’s phone were classified as category A, said: “[They] are of the most revolting and abhorrent kind. They are just awful. You can rarely, if ever, expunge it from your memory.”
Information collated by the National Crime Agency (NCA) was presented in court, including details of the Snapchat account which lead them to Mr Khan.
Mr Gabb continued: “The crown would say in many years outwardly projecting an image of a pillar of society, Mr Khan was nursing a deep and sordid secret.
“In the privacy of those moments where he and his phone were together he thought he would never, ever be caught.”
Mr Khan’s car was searched and a phone, “exclusively” limited to his use, was also seized. The device was habouring 106 images of children and an app which grants to access the dark web, downloaded in April 2020 to “titillate” his desires, the court heard.
Mr Khan had used encrypted sites to enter chat rooms to talk with “up to 15 people” about sex but “started off talking about rugby”, jurors were told.
“Mr Khan is apparently a well respected consultant surgeon at Salisbury District Hospital, he’s a specialist doctor,” Mr Gabb added.
“He is leading a double life - a life that seems, from the outset, not only perfectly respectable but laudable.
“A father of four and coach to his girl’s rugby team, what more of a pillar of society could you be.”
When quizzed by detectives, Mr Gabb revealed Mr Khan said he had only visited the websites out of “curiosity”.
“Anybody looking at those names cannot have been in any doubt whatsoever when they were clicking on and viewing,” Mr Gabb continued.
“How many times do you need to go into something to realise what it shows. Surely, the Crown suggests, not more than once.
“The ones he screen-shotted were just awful. He said he was doing it to educate his children so he could protect them from what was in the dark web.
“The Crown say that is just a nonsense.
“His explanation was to turn a vice into a virtue. What else could he say?
“We know what curiosity did to the cat.
“One explanation that the defendant perhaps doesn’t like what looks back at him from his soul in his reflection when he looks in the mirror.
“Some may say he has just shown himself to be fallible human, but the Crown say it is perverted, disgusting, exploitative and abusive.
“The Crown say he cannot bring himself to accept the man he really is.”
Mr Khan graduated from Aberdeen University in 1995 and has undertaken 12 years of training in plastic surgery.
He also completed extensive research at Imperial College and obtained his medical degree in 2003.
He then undertook a year-long fellowship in New Zealand in reconstructive and burns surgery before taking up his post in 2008 as a consultant at the Wessex Regional Plastic Surgery Unit in Salisbury District Hospital.
The trial continues.
