back to article Judge issues radioactive 'pr0n downloader' alert

A judge has warned that a man who jumped bail while facing child pornography charges and fled to Ireland could pose a radiation risk to those he comes into contact with. College principal Thomas Leopold, 42, was slated for an appearance before the beak accused of "five counts of making indecent images of children, and one of …

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  1. Jim Carter
    Coat

    It's a shame the judge didn't say

    "Up and atom!" to the police...

  2. Squits

    Shoot on sight

    If those pesky Al-Qaeda blokes get their filthy hooks into him, they just have to strap a bomb on him and send him into parliament, a double dirty bomb, what with the radiation and all the blood, shit and piss flying everywhere.

    Shoot him anyway, damn paedos want grinding into dust under a massive boot.

  3. Adam Foxton
    Coat

    "And don't make him angry...

    ... You wouldn't like him when he's angry."

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    He'll be easy to track then.....

    .... Just look for the green glowing bloke with the bubbling pint of guiness with a mildly roasted child on his lap.

    Mines the one with the geiger counter in the pocket.

  5. nobby

    poor easily deluded special branch officer

    i assume he'll be sacked.

    or promoted

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And why don't we have...

    Why don't we have geiger counters at our ports anyway? Unlike X-rays and metal detectors they're almost completely passive and very very cheap -- anyone with half a brain can knock one together on a kitchen table.

    "Excuse me sir, but you appear to be radioactive."

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I can't decide between...

    Turn the lights off and he's the one that glows in the dark.

    Or

    Nuke 'em till they glow and then shoot 'em in the dark.

  8. Cameron Colley

    OMG! Nooooooooooo!

    A _radioactive_ roboplegic wrongcock!

  9. David Neil
    Flame

    All joking aside

    At least the kids will know if he's hiding under the bed.

    I know, I'm going to a bad place....

  10. Caff

    geiger counter

    So issues the Garda with geiger counters and we'll find him pretty quick?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Halo

    How to stop an exploding man

    Dammit Sylar, we need you..

  12. Goatan
    Paris Hilton

    Running man anyone

    I think we should send out the stalkers. My money is on Buzz Saw making the first kill

    Paris because she 'glows' in the dark too

  13. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge

    @Geiger Counter comments

    Geiger-Muller tubes work by detecting charged particles directly. Since the average radioactive particle will only travel a few centimetres through air, they would be pretty much useless unless you go around waving one over every part of a person's anatomy. Add that to the fact that the radioactive iodine used to treat a thyroid condition (not an uncommon treatment) will be concentrated in a persons thyroid gland, which is in their neck beneath skin and surface musculature, which would tend to absorb the beta particles pretty effectively.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Radioactive super powers?

    SuperPaedo!

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    radiation scare stories again

    Anything to do with radiation automatically becomes a scare oout of proportion to the real threat.

    He will presumabely be treated with I131 this has a half life from memory of about 8 days and is a gamma and beta emitter. The gamma rays havea fairly high energy (for nuclea rmedicine anyway) of around 360 keV so will easily penetrate his body.

    Whatever he has ingested has already decayed by a factor of 8. In addition some material will have been excreted. The beta radiation will not penetrate his body leaving the gamma exposure to police or the public. Studies of the radiation exposure to the family members and pets! of therapy patients show that doses recived over two weeks are an order of magnitude below safety limits.

    Given that the material will have decayed by a factor of 8 and the possible exposure time is going to be no more than a few hours the 'threat' already well within safety limits is going to be roughly one thousandth of an already insignificant hazard. Actually this is obvious, people are routinely treated in this way as out patients and it is considered quite normal and safe.

    The story does contribute to the general scare mongering and paranoid fantasy about anything radioactive, dirty bombs etc.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Nuclear powered Pedo!!!

    the daily mail will have a field day!

  17. amanfromMars Silver badge
    Alert

    Wow ..... Rogue State Toxic Waste

    "So issues the Garda with geiger counters and we'll find him pretty quick?" .... By Caff Posted Friday 27th February 2009 14:48 GMT

    Caff,

    You don't know the Garda, very well, do you? [And that's a joke, Paddy, as you know we are masters at laughing at ourselves. And bloody good at rugby too. :-)]

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Another indication the establishment neither knows ...

    ...nor cares about science.

  19. Joe K
    Black Helicopters

    Huh?

    A radioactive peado on the run and out to rape/irradiate the nations children?

    Isn't that like the Daily Mail's wet dream?

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Once again - read the story

    He is *accused* of having dangerously pornographic pictures.

    It scares the hell out of me that there are so many people ready to cry hang 'em and flog 'em before any evidence has even been heard, just because someone has been accused. He may be a paedo, but he may not...

    Does no one care about justice any more?

    Paris because she can be dangerously pornographic

  21. Stuart
    Alien

    glowng overlord

    We must band together to fight these irish iradiated overlords, oh for the teachings of tom cruis.

  22. raving angry loony
    Coat

    officially quotable

    I guess this is the kind of story one should expect from "...a website..." that's sometimes "...a reliable news breaker..." or even "...an ever-excellent technology site..." but is really just "...a bunch of aggro loner twats..." pretending to be "...a respected technology news website..." while in reality engaging in "...unethical..." "...yellow..." pseudo-journalism. This "...internet scandal-sheet..." is less informative about I.T. than a "...comically angry..." "...online lesbian magazine...". I guess they ran short of real news, and had to fall back to being "...an ad-banner trolling site who will publish any rubbish if it'll get clicks...". This story is probably "...best ignored...", it being Friday after all.

    Yeah, the one with the extra ellipses in the pocket, ta.

  23. Oliver Mayes
    Joke

    Captain Scarlet

    I'm sure I remember an old episode of Captain Scarlet where Captain Black was accidentally irradiated and they used a special 'directional' geiger counter to track him. Surely someone somewhere must have invented one of these by now that we can use to find the guy.

  24. John Savard

    Summary

    He may only be accused of a child pornography offence, but clearly he has violated his bail conditions. Perhaps by announcing that he is radioactive, it is hoped that he will turn himself in, rather than being Tasered by police who wouln't want to spend too long physically restraining him.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    well

    "five counts of making indecent images of children"

    Well at least at the moment that probably means the guy in someway took photos of naked kids (although he could just be an artist who makes pictures of cherubs)

    But soon "five counts of making indecent images of children" will just mean he drew 5 manga loli on a piece of paper.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Science

    Depends on the kind of radiotherapy. Toward the end of his life John Diamond had the occasional radioactive implant as doctors got ever more desperate to stop him dying.

  27. Dave
    Boffin

    @Ed Blackshaw

    All of which is very interesting, but does rather contradict the assertion of the Doctor and the Judge, that this man is dangerously radio-active, doesn't it?

    <- Glowing man?

  28. Maty

    'making indecent pics'

    As I understand the law, this means that you simply have to download the .jpg and 'make' the pic on your screen with the comp. It goes back to the time when it was legal to possess some kinds of porn, but not to manufacture the stuff, so some clever prosecutor persuaded a judge that the 'download file - create image' was making the picture.

    Anyway, I seem to recall that here in Canada Manga lolis are illegal. (Well, some anyway)

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    @AC 1632

    "Making images" is a legal term. He most likely viewed them (if indeed he did) online and they were saved in his cache - thus "making" them. If he had taken the pictures it would more liley be child abuse.

  30. Paul
    Boffin

    @well

    Nope, "making" usually means "downloading". because when you download something you "make" a copy. I wish I was joking, but I'm not.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Special Branch

    '...he convinced a Special Branch officer...'

    So that's special as in 'Special Needs'

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ well

    >"five counts of making indecent images of children"

    Well at least at the moment that probably means the guy in someway took photos of naked kids<

    Couldn't be further from the truth. But the law was deliberately phrased to suggest what you surmise. Crafty, ain't it?

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yes! Irradiate all paedos NAO!

    ...as I imagine it will say all over The Sun's Have Your Say, Morons pages tomorrow

  34. F.
    Boffin

    a few links on the topic

    Pet owner gets stopped and searched for dirty bombs because routine nuclear surveillance detected the radiation treatment in his cat. Inside a car. Going by at 70 miles per hour. - http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2004300343_danny23.html

    ‘Hot’ patients setting off dirty-bomb alarms - Surprise side effect of radioactive medical therapies: being strip-searched - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16869630/

    Medical Tests Can Trigger Airport Radiation Alarms - http://sexualhealth.e-healthsource.com/index.php?p=news1&id=526971

    Bruce Schneier on radiation detectors in ports - http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/03/radiation_detec_1.html

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    Hmm

    "...he convinced a Special Branch officer the terms of his bail had been altered..."

    Getting radiated seems to give you Jedi mind control powers.

  36. Anonymous John
    Coat

    Reminds me of the radioactive cat litter story.

    http://www.snopes.com/critters/gnus/litter.asp

    Mine's the lead-lined one.

  37. Tea-800
    Happy

    @John Savard

    Alternatively, bombard him with more radiation, drop him into water and rig him to the national grid?

  38. Elron Hubward
    Flame

    I wonder....

    ..if the Judge instead of the more usual slap on the wrist, ten minutes community service and enforced subscription to the Grauniad, will hand down two consecutive half-life sentances.

    Flame, cos it's as close as I can get to a radiation warning icon.

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Scared now...

    Several El Reg regulars have commented recently that amanfromMars has been posting comments that border on the understandable.

    And now, today, we have a comment that appears to me to be perfectly lucid..

    Is the depot finally working or am I slowly sinking too .........

  40. James O'Brien
    Coat

    @Scared now...

    Hell I've been saying that for at least 3 months now. Hell what has me more worried is it took this long for people to say anything. Starting to wonder if we were so conditioned by his normal posts that we just randomly added in nonsensical phrases into a post of his liberally sprinkled with XXXXXX and stuff in there from time to time. Maybe that alien mind control of his is starting to get to us...

    /mines the one with the foil hat next to it. Thanks

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Ed Blackshaw, detection of radiation by GM tubes

    "Geiger-Muller tubes work by detecting charged particles directly. Since the average radioactive particle will only travel a few centimetres through air, they would be pretty much useless unless you go around waving one over every part of a person's anatomy"

    GM tubes will also detect gamma rays. If a gamma ray photo strikes a particle of air within the tube (and is absorbed), the molecule of gas become ionised.

    So GM tubes will also detect gamma radiation.

    However, the point about gamma radiation is that it is not as strongly isonising as alpha radiation. Alpha radiation are charged particles. Gamma radiation is not charged.

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't let him pee on you

    If as someone else has suggested the primary emitters of radiation with the radioisotope are gamma rays and beta radiation, the beta particles ( high energy electrons) will not penetrate the skin, however the gamma will, but that's probably very low level.

    The biggest risk is...if you catch the criminal and he decides to take a leak over you.

    Some of the radioactive material may find its way into the uninary system.

  43. Simon Neill

    Dangerously radioactive?

    "Geiger-Muller tubes work by detecting charged particles directly. Since the average radioactive particle will only travel a few centimetres through air, they would be pretty much useless unless you go around waving one over every part of a person's anatomy. Add that to the fact that the radioactive iodine used to treat a thyroid condition (not an uncommon treatment) will be concentrated in a persons thyroid gland, which is in their neck beneath skin and surface musculature, which would tend to absorb the beta particles pretty effectively."

    Indeed. Surely if he was radioactive enough to be a danger to others he would be....well...dead, dead dead and more dead to the power dead. So that raises the question, if he IS radioactive enough to be dangerous he should be easily detectable.

  44. Andy Barber
    Alert

    Risk to others

    Both my late son & extant wife had radiotherapy (i.e. radioactive treatment,) to their cancers. I was never given a health warning that they were radioactive. Simply because the amount of radiation they emitted would have been too tiny to worry about. The Beak saw the words "radioactive treatment" & threw a wobbly!

  45. Steve Kay

    Radioactive nonce?

    Daily Mail HERE WE COME :D

  46. CTG
    Happy

    Radioactive man

    I was working on a client site with a colleague a couple of years ago. She was pregnant at the time. She has always been on the, erm, larger side, and now with the baby was... well, you get the picture. One of the client's techies had just had this iodine therapy, and he was told that he was radioactive enough that he had to stay away from people who might be sensitive to radiation. So he comes into our room, looks at the two of us and says, "There aren't any children or pregnant women in here, are there?"... My colleague was not amused.

  47. theotherone
    Alert

    what will they think of next

    radioactive pedophiles ..... what will they think of next .....?

  48. dreadful scathe
    Stop

    oh dear

    lot of Daily Mail "outraged from London" types in here. He was to go to court because 5 pictures he had "may" be illegal to possess ? Why does this stuff even make it to court ? Is this value for money for the taxpayer ?

  49. Nexox Enigma

    Riiiiight, dangerous...

    I tend to work with 'dangerous' levels of radiation most days. It takes a fair amount of radiation to get a Geiger counter to start ticking above background levels - say like 10 feet from a 1.6 Curie CS 137 source in a ~33kg depleted uranium shield. And you really have to be paying attention to see that low level.

    For someone treated with such extremely low levels of radiation, with such a short halflife, you'd probably be able to stick the Geiger-Muller tube probe down their throat and not see anything out of the orginary. You would likely need a Scintillation Detector, which is not quite as cheap or easy to make as a geiger counter. And you'd have to be pretty close too. The nice thing is that if you did it right, it could do a spectroscopic breakdown and tell you just what radioisotopes it found. And that would probably come out on the indecent side of $100k.

  50. JT2008

    @AC

    "He is *accused* of having dangerously pornographic pictures."

    And then he ran.

    Nothing says "I did it!" "Arrest me!" like running.

  51. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    Title

    I for one DO NOT welcome our Radioactive Super Pedo overlords.

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