March 17th 2015
A doctor who downloaded and stored hundreds of child abuse images has been jailed for two years and dismissed from his post. A total of 1275 images were found on various devices including his office computer at the University of Dundee.
45 year-old medical researcher Dr Michael Boylan was caught at Ninewells Hospital, where he ran a research facility for the University.
The images included almost 300 classified at the top two levels of the scale, depicting extreme acts including sadism and beastiality.
The stash stored on his office computer – which featured girls from infant to 14 – was stored in a file containing medical documents, a staff file and his CV. He had also used the computer to search the internet for sites such as 'little models' and 'top 100 pre-teen'.
Boylan was originally arrested a year ago after it came to light that an internet-connected device in his office contained the indecent images, according to Fiscal Depute Vicky Bell. The office was secured by a four-digit PIN and could be accessed by others only under his supervision as it had contained specialist equipment. Police seized two computers from the office and a laptop from his home. One office computer contained 315 indecent child images, the other 67 indecent images and search terms like 'pre-teen models' and 'top 100 pre-teen' on one hard drive, and 442 indecent images and two still videos on another hard drive. The laptop taken from his home contained 451 indecent images.
On his arrest, Boylan was immediately suspended from his post.
In addition to the imprisonment, he will be placed on the sex offenders register for an indefinite period.
A spokesperson for Dundee University said: "The university has cooperated fully with police in the course of their investigations and we will be reviewing our IT security and systems to ensure incidents of this nature cannot happen again."
