Kidderminster paedophile nurse struck off

A PAEDOPHILE nurse from Kidderminster has been struck off after he was caught with a video of a 10-year-old girl on his computer.

Emmanuel Villafania, 38, claimed he did not how the clip called “Mafia sex children” got on the hard drive while he was working at Ablegrange Seven Heights care home in Worcester in 2007.

Father-of-two Villafania said he must have downloaded it accidentally but the file had been on his computer for three years, the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard.

The video was discovered by chance when Villafania sent his hard drive to IT company, Xytron Ltd, to have it repaired in July, 2007.

A few days later he called the company to ask about their privacy policy relating to files contained on his hard drive. He told the engineer he did not want the file to be opened because it was “private”.

That aroused suspicion and IT worker, Richard Cuthbertson, found the film, reported it to police and Villafania was arrested.

Adrianna McDonnell, for the NMC, said: “The content is described by police as being a level 4. There are only five levels in terms of seriousness when dealing with a case like this. The only one higher involves images of sadism and bestiality.”

Mr Cuthbertson confirmed the file could only have been created by a user of the computer and that it could not have been downloaded accidentally.

The panel heard the file was created on December 5, 2005 and it was last accessed on May 14, 2007.

Villafania was convicted of possessing an indecent image of a child in October, 2007 and was given a six-month suspended sentence when he appeared at Kidderminster Magistrates Court of October 18, 2007. He was also made to sign the sex offenders register.

Miss McDonnell said Villafania was well aware of what he was doing.

She said: “This nurse has no insight into what he did. This case is about child abuse. There is a 10-year-old child in this video. Child protection agencies say every time a video like this is watched the child involved is being abused again.

“Mr Villafania has not once acknowledged the harm caused by videos such as this. As a nurse he should have been horrified when he came across this and if he did not download it he should have contacted the police.

“But he didn’t. He kept it on his computer for three years and the last time it was accessed what just a few months before his arrest.

NMC chairman, Judith Worthington, said: ‘This is a conviction for a serious offence. The nurse had on his computer an indecent video of a young child performing acts of a sexual nature with an adult male.

“The contents of the video were extremely disturbing and rated as a level 4 image. The nurse received a custodial sentence and he has not yet completed the two-year period of the suspension order.

“For the protection of the public and in order to maintain the reputation of the profession a striking off order is the appropriate sanction.”