Jury told that child sex abuse videos were sent via WhatsApp

Self-described ‘research doctor’ Mukesh Bharti, 46, is expected to claim that it was this man, named in court as Vijay or Vicky, who used his mobile phone to arrange for children in the Philippines and elsewhere to be abused on camera.

And a jury at Oxford Crown Court was told yesterday (September 12) that the Abingdon man was also likely to argue that ‘Vijay’ had modified ‘screen recordings’ of children being sexually abused on WhatsApp calls, meaning that it was Bharti’s face that appeared in an in-picture box in the taped video calls.

Opening the prosecution’s case on Tuesday, barrister Matthew Walsh said Bharti had detailed in a legal document setting out his defence that ‘Vijay’, who he met through his work at the John Radcliffe Hospital, had been blackmailing him after he refused to sell 'tablets' for him.

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“The police have made all efforts to track Vicky or Vijay [down], to find him, and see if there is truth in what Mr Bharti has said,” Mr Walsh said.

“As I stand here, they’ve not found [any] trace to suggest the existence of that man.

“Maybe [it is] because of his elusiveness or, as the prosecution says, it’s simply because he doesn’t exist and it’s the creation of Mr Bharti to try and explain away the evidence that was gradually presented to him by the police.”

When he was initially interviewed by the police, the defendant claimed to have been ‘bombarded’ with indecent images of children on WhatsApp after he signed up to online dating app PinaLove, Mr Walsh said.

Bharti told detectives that he even went to the police station to report the vile material he was being sent but was simply told to block the numbers.

“If what he says is right, the police were pretty uninterested in the international distribution of indecent images of children,” Mr Walsh told the jury.

“You will hear that police officers who work on the front desk at Abingdon police station have been identified and spoken to.

“They have no recollection of such a conversation taking place and such advice being given by them, nor is there any record on the police database system of any such conversation taking place.”

Officers from Abingdon police station (picture) had been spoken to, the court heard

Indecent images of children were found on a first phone seized from the defendant, along with WhatsApp conversations consistent with the user of the phone seemingly arranging video calls with young children in exchange for money.

Three screen recordings were found, apparently showing WhatsApp video calls between the defendant and children who were being sexually abused.

The jury was told that in one, a child was posed for the camera and was ‘waving’. Mr Walsh said the person on the other end of the call, who the prosecution says was Bharti, was ‘seemingly waving back’.

Messages found on WhatsApp chat logs allegedly showed the defendant paying for indecent material and his frustration at being sent images he had previously seen.

“I don’t want repeat videos,” he was alleged to have told one seller. Another, named in call logs as ‘Philip’, allegedly received the complaint ‘not even one new video’ after a number of files were sent to Bharti’s phone.

More indecent material was said to have been found on a second phone, said to have been in the possession of the defendant after his first mobile phone was seized by the police.

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Bharti, of Overmead, Abingdon, denies charges of making indecent images of children, causing the sexual exploitation of a child and arranging the travel of another person with a view to sexual exploitation.

The final charge related to him allegedly paying the taxi fare for a girl to a location near Manilla where she would be abused on camera.

The trial continues.