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Paediatrician still works despite child porn rap

Malcolm Curtis
Malcolm Curtis - [email protected]
Paediatrician still works despite child porn rap
Photo: Interpol

A hospital children’s doctor in the canton of Aargau convicted for possessing child pornography after taking more than 12,000 pictures and 700 videos of young boys is being allowed to continue working in medicine.

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The 35-year-old doctor, on a 120,000-franc annual salary, took the films and videos, which were uploaded to websites, between 1999 and 2012, before he was arrested, the Aargauer Zeitung reported on Wednesday.

The Aarau district court on Tuesday handed the paediatrician a suspended fine of 74,400 francs, in addition to a firm fine of 10,000 francs.
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But the Aargau association of doctors stopped short of pulling his licence to practice, although it recommended that he no longer work with children, the newspaper said.

The doctor, who lost his job at the children’s hospital in Aarau, is working in “internal medicine” for an unidentified hospital in Switzerland, the Blick newspaper reported.

The fact he is still able to work in a hospital has outraged at least one politician.

Natalie Rickli, a Swiss People’s Party MP from Zurich, told 20 Minuten that any doctor convicted for child pornography should not be able to continue in the profession.

Rickli also complained that the federal justice department is dragging its heels over the introduction of an initiative, approved by voters last May, to ban paedophiles from working with children.

The legislation is expected to go into effect sometime this spring.

The lawyer for the paediatrician, who has being undertaking therapy for the past two and a half years, told media that he was sorry for what he did.

He was caught by Swiss police as a result of an international investigation led in Scandinavia against an internet site.

An Internet Protocol (IP) address led investigators to Switzerland and the doctor subsequently informed the children’s hospital where he was working that charges were being made against him.

His work contract with the hospital was immediately ended.

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