A wind farm Tycoon was caught with indecent images of children after asking a computer repair shop to erase his hard drives.
Alexander Hensher, 48, company director of a renewable energy company, told the staff member at the store in Bournemouth, Dorset, that he was being investigated by police.
But the employee he approached was in fact a police special agent, who contacted his superiors so that Hensher’s hard drives could be seized and analyzed.
They were found to contain one Category A image, one Category B image, and two Category C images.
Hensher, a father-of-three who lives in a £2million mansion in Chelsea, appeared at Weymouth Magistrates’ Court after pleading guilty to three charges of making indecent images of a child.
The court heard he went to Bites in Bournemouth in October 2024 to seek help in wiping his three hard drives.
Susan Fellows, prosecuting, said: ‘Mr Hensher attended a computer shop in Bournemouth on October 10, 2024 and he handed over three hard drives and a phone to the staff member and paid to have them erased.
‘During the conversation with that employee, he mentioned that he had recently been arrested for a sex offense and asked if the police could hack into devices remotely.
Alexander Hensher, 48, outside Weymouth Magistrates’ Court where he pleaded guilty to three charges of making indecent images of a child
“The staff member was a special constable on duty.
‘He shared his concerns with his police hierarchy and shortly afterwards police seized and examined Mr Hensher’s devices.
‘He had one Category A photo of a child, one Category B photo and two Category C photos.
“An aggravating factor in this case is that he made very apparent attempts to dispose of or erase devices before police seized them.”
Rod Hayler, defending the images, said they were a limited number of images and there was no evidence Hensher had recently accessed them.
He told the court that Hensher believes he has not looked at them in 15 to 20 years.
He said his client “panicked” and made a “foolish and naive decision” when he was arrested for an unrelated sex offence, which led to no further action from police.
He added that his client had taken steps to address his offending, including visiting a renowned psycho-sexual therapist.
Mr Hayler said: ‘The small number of images is a relevant factor as it contrasts with the many, if not most, cases coming before the criminal courts today involving tens, hundreds or even thousands of images.
‘The images were located on two hard drives and there is no indication that they have been used or opened recently.
Hensher, who wears a suit and a silver tie during his court appearance, is a father of three
“Mr. Hensher said he’s not sure, but he thinks it was 15 to 20 years (since he got access to it) before he went into the computer store.
‘That does not excuse the offense or make it any less serious, but it does not suggest it was a frequent or ongoing activity, it was not something he returned to again and again.
‘Mr Hensher initially relied on online pornography of an adult and legal nature, which briefly evolved into something illegal.
‘He was arrested for an unrelated matter that went unresolved, causing him to panic as he was still in possession of illegal material on his hard drives.
“He made the foolish and naive decision to take them to a local computer store to have them erased.”
The court heard a probation officer’s report which said Hensher, who was previously of good character, was at low risk of reoffending.
Magistrates gave Hensher a 12-month community order with 100 hours of unpaid work and made a five-year sexual harm prevention order.
Hensher, from west London, who is listed as a company director of Lakeside Land Limited, was also fined £199 and will have his hard drives destroyed.
Magistrate chairman Louise Dutton said: ‘These offenses are so serious that we can make a community order for 12 months.’
Hensher has been a wind farm developer for more than twenty years. He founded A7 Energy in 2004 to develop small to medium sites in North Lanarkshire, Scotland.
The Greendykeside site became operational in 2007 and generated electricity for approximately 2,200 homes.
In 2008, Sainsbury’s signed a ten-year deal with its A7 Lochhead project in South Lanarkshire to provide enough wind-generated energy to power four of their supermarkets.
Hensher founded Energy G Limited in 2013, based in Poole, Dorset.
