What the hell is going on in England?

Cambridge University is allowing an academic to keep his job despite a conviction for possessing sickening pornographic images of children.

The decision to welcome back Dr Nicholas Hammond has outraged children’s charities.

Hammond, 45, was last year suspended on full pay as director of studies in modern languages after being caught with more than 1,100 vile images on his computers.

They included 30 in the most serious ‘level five’ category of pornography and other images involving babies as young as two days.

But he was controversially spared jail last month and has been told he can return to work in April.

Hammond is a fellow and former student at Gonville and Caius.

But wait. It gets worse:

Hammond was arrested in June last year after police raided his home following a tip-off.

At Cambridge Crown Court in July this year he admitted making, possessing and distributing indecent images. Hammond, who is gay, told the court he had not intended to view the level-five images – only those of teenage boys.

Last month he was given a suspended 12-month sentence and a two-year supervision order. He was also placed on the Sex Offender Register and fined £1,000.

Judge Gareth Hawkes-worth, who graduated from Cambridge, told Hammond
he was a sorely damaged individual who could be rehabilitated.

‘During this period you were suffering from moderate depression and you were seeking refuge from life in a halcyon part of your youth, relived by looking at low-level images of boys, often in swimming clothes,’ he said.

‘But viewing this material can become addictive and if you had not been interrupted there would have been a serious risk that your voyeurism may have turned into action.’

What!?! A) Hammond isn’t gay, he’s a pedophile. There’s a big difference. B) Depression causes people to surf child porn? That’s an outrageous excuse for the degeneracy of an individual. C) Porn causes both addiction and molestation? I thought the Europeans had advanced beyond pseudo-science.

Some of Hammond’s colleagues aren’t thrilled to have to rub rarefied elbows with infant rape fetishists as you can imagine. They’re pushing for him to get thrown out. Don’t hold your breath however, in England watching babies being raped takes a back seat to commenting on our elections.

You think American academics are any different?