Former UEA lecturer facing child porn charges disappears from court

He disappeared just before the jury found him guilty of all charges


A former UEA lecturer convicted of downloading child porn fled court this week half way through his trial.

Julian Myerscough, who taught Criminal Law at UEA before a previous sexual offence in 2010, is suspected to have caught a train from Ipswich station during his 10 day trial, causing a warrant for his arrest to be issued.

Myerscough, who represented himself in the trial, had initially pleaded not guilty to three offences of breaching a sexual offences prevention order between 2010 and 2013, as well as 13 offences of making indecent images of children.

UEA Law School

His disappearance occurred shortly before the jury found Myerscough guilty of all 16 charges he faced.

While executing search warrants in September 2013 at the former lecturer’s home in Suffolk and his mother’s home in Bolton, police found a laptop, a computer tower and a memory stick all of which containing child pornography.

During the trial it came to light that Myerscough had also previously been convicted of five similar charges in 2010, which then banned him from using computers or electronic devices where internet history could not be tracked and retained.

However, the prosecutor said that this made him more “forensically aware” and he had gone to “significant lengths” to mask his internet history.

Myerscough, though, said that he was someone who “wouldn’t be told by the courts what he mustn’t do”.