BREAKING: Portsmouth magician avoids jail over indecent images of children

Jason Packer, 47, was convicted last month by a jury for making indecent photos of children, relating to 124 category A images, the most serious class of indecent pictures, and of possessing 85 images of extreme pornography.

The ex-member of the Justice and Anti-Corruption Party, a Portsmouth political group that claimed to be trying to stamp out wrong-doing in public office, protested his innocence throughout the trial, claiming the images related to research he had undertaken ahead of appealing a former conviction for having indecent images of children at a previous trial in 2015.

The magician, of Balliol Road, Buckland, believed his earlier conviction to have been a 'miscarriage of justice.'

His defence counsel Robert Bryan said in mitigation that Packer's actions had been 'misguided' and 'foolish.'

The entertainer had been given a 12-month jail sentence for his previous conviction after being convicted of four counts of possessing extreme pornography and 13 counts of possessing indecent images of children.

This morning, Judge Linda Sullivan QC gave Packer an 18-month jail sentence suspended for two years for one count of making indecent photographs of children and another count of possessing images of extreme pornography. No verdicts were reached on two other charges of making indecent images.

He was also ordered to abide to a strict curfew of between the hours of 8am and 8pm, was tagged and will carry out a requirement of 20 days of rehabilitation.

The computer on which the images were found has been forfeited and will be destroyed.