A handyman who planted child pornography on his boss’s computer in a bid to get promoted has been jailed.
Neil Weiner, 40, hatched the plot to get caretaker Eddie Thompson sacked from Swanlea Secondary School in Whitechapel, east London, in 2006.
He sent police a CD containing 177 indecent images of children claiming they were from Mr Thompson’s laptop.
Weiner was jailed for 12 years for perverting the course of justice and possessing indecent images of children.
The man launched the plot hoping to get Mr Thompson sacked so that he could be promoted, the court heard.
Judge David Paget told him: “What you did to a decent and honest man was in my view wicked.
“My life and good name was nearly destroyed by a villain who tried to destroy my reputation in a monstrous manner”
Eddie Thompson Victim
“It is difficult to imagine a more cunning, deceitful or warped course of conduct than yours in this case, or a more malicious one.”
Hundreds more pictures were found on Mr Thompson’s computer and the caretaker was arrested in October 2006.
He told police he had been set up by colleagues who did not like him but it was eight months before police decided no further action would be taken.
Mr Thompson and his wife became afraid to leave the house, when he received threats and they were spat at in public, after details of the allegations were leaked by Weiner to a local newspaper.
Even when he returned to the school where he had worked since 1993, Mr Thompson said he was shunned by nearly all the staff, making his life “almost unbearable”.
“My life and good name was nearly destroyed by a villain who tried to destroy my reputation in a monstrous manner,” said the Mr Thompson in a victim impact statement read to the court.
Weiner was arrested in 2007 after a mobile phone used to make an initial anonymous call to police about Mr Thompson was traced to him.
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