Child porn fit up earns 12 years' jail

A man who tried to set up a workmate by putting child pornography on his laptop has been jailed after his ruse backfired. Photo / Thinkstock

At 8.30am on October 25 2006, Eddie Thompson answered the door of his east London home. He thought his visitor was an engineer coming to read his gas meter.

But Thompson, a school caretaker, was met by Scotland Yard detectives who arrested him on suspicion of downloading child pornography.

His arrest was the beginning of a four-year ordeal which ended only yesterday when Neil Weiner, a handyman at the same school, was jailed for 12 years for putting the indecent images on Thompson's laptop.

It was an attempt to get him sacked because he found him difficult to work for and he hoped it would lead to a promotion.

The Old Bailey heard that Thompson's picture had appeared on the front page of his local newspaper alongside the allegations after Weiner, 40, alerted them to the story.

The 62-year-old was shunned by his neighbours, who thought he was a paedophile.

He spent 11 hours in police custody and was placed on bail for the next eight months. He was suspended from his job of 13 years, and he and his wife were spat at in the street.

The nightmare ended when two of the detectives who arrested Thompson suspected he had been set up and discovered Weiner was behind the plot.

Passing sentence, Judge David Paget said that Weiner's scheme, carried out against a "decent and honest man", was "wicked", adding: "It is difficult to imagine a more cunning, deceitful or warped code of conduct."

Thompson, who sat in the court to watch Weiner being sentenced, admitted he was shocked by the length of sentence, but said: "I think he has got what he richly deserved. Because of him it could have been me in that dock for something I didn't do."

- THE INDEPENDENT