US scientist who covertly filmed 360 women blames Parkinson's meds, avoids jail

Durham: A former university professor and scientist who had created a manual on how to abuse children, escaped jail after he blamed his Parkinson’s medication for his behaviour last week.

According to a report in The Sun, 59-year-old Dr Jeremy Allington-Smith had downloaded several thousands of vulgar pictures of kids and sketched images of children being abused.

He had also filmed hundreds of women, making 360 covert videos of women in short skirts in 5 years.

The behaviour of the former Durham university lecturer came to light after one of his students found an envelope which had disturbing pencil sketches of children being abused in the rubbish.

Following this, police raided the professor’s house to discover 3,141 downloaded pictures of which 688 were in the ‘most serious category’. They also found 1,818 Japanese-cartoon style and computer generated pictures along with a manual on how to abuse children.

Last week, the judge at the Durham Crown Court said that doctors confirmed that the medication’s potential side-effects. They said the medication if monitored correctly could prevent impulsive behaviour.

The judge further said that Allington-Smith was “racked with remorse” after psychiatric counselling.

Allington-Smith admitted possessing the manual and to three instances of making and processing indecent images of children.

Allington-Smith was the associate director of a leading research facility and one of the country’s leading astrophysicists. He recently resigned from his post at the Durham University.