Ex-children's entertainer faces jail over indecent images

Jurors deliberated for six hours and 57 minutes before returning two guilty verdicts in Jason Packer’s trial.

Packer was convicted of making indecent photographs of children, relating to 124 category A images, and of possessing 85 images of extreme pornography.

The 47-year-old former children’s entertainer told jurors this week he was ‘researching’ online while waiting to be sentenced for a previous conviction over child images.

Packer, of Balliol Road, Buckland, is an ex-member of the Justice and Anti-Corruption party.

At a previous trial where he was convicted of having indecent images of children, he claimed they had been planted on his device by ‘agents’ of former Portsmouth South MP Mike Hancock. The claim was rejected by the earlier jury.

This week, Packer told jurors he was just researching to prove a ‘miscarriage of justice’ in his 2015 trial.

He said he did not look at any of the images and only saved the URLs of websites to a folder entitled ‘Jason legal’ when he found the images from his previous conviction.

But yesterday, as Packer was given bail ahead of sentencing on August 11, judge Linda Sullivan QC said: ‘You should not take the fact I’ve ordered a pre-sentence report as any indication how you will be dealt with in due course. All options will be available to me, including immediate custody.’

No verdicts were reached on two other charges of making indecent images.

Jeffrey Lamb, prosecuting, said it was ‘no longer in the public interest’ to prosecute those, so verdicts of not guilty were entered by the judge.

Packer’s friend Stephen George wept in the public gallery after the verdicts.

George, 64, also of Balliol Road, Buckland, this year admitted distributing a printed indecent image of a child to a News journalist – who handed it to police – at one of Packer’s earlier hearings.

A judge found George had no sexual motivation.

More on this story

• Jason Packer’s first trial and sentencing.

• Stephen George’s sentencing where it was found he had ‘no sexual motivation’.