Pet porn shame of school governor JP

Michael Hall (46) was forced to quit as a JP and governor at three schools after officers discovered 230 photographs and 150 videos—depicting women engaged in sex acts with horses, a donkey, dogs, a gerbil, a frog and a live snake—during a raid on his home last September.

Police swooped on Hall’s semi-detached home on Foxlands Avenue, Swinton, in response to concerns being raised about his unusual online activity.

The shamed JP later pleaded guilty to 21 specimen counts of possession of extreme pornography at Leeds Magistrates’ Court, where the case took place to avoid court staff he may know in South Yorkshire.

Hall had been a serving magistrate in Rotherham since 2007 and was also a governor at three Rotherham schools—St Thomas C of E Primary in Kilnhurst, Swinton Fitzwilliam Primary and Swinton Community.

He was also a member of Rotherham Borough Council’s Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Panel, which helps determine the authority’s policies on bullying and young people’s social care.

But his dramatic fall from grace came to a head when magistrates handed him a three-year community order, which requires him to spend 144 days completing a sex offenders’ programme and remain under probation service supervision for three years.

Possessing extreme pornography is an offence under the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, which makes it illegal to possess images of bestiality, necrophilia and acts which threaten life or are likely to result in serious injury.

STOMACH-CHURNING: Neighbour gives her reaction to Hall's conviction. See this week's Advertiser.