A LYNEHAM man who collected nearly 500 images of child pornography has escaped a jail sentence.

Stephen Brooks was given a three-year community rehabilitation order and ordered to pay £150 in costs at Swindon magistrates court.

The 36-year-old, of Bakersfield, will now appear on the Sex Offenders Register for the next five years.

At an earlier hearing he was warned that he could face prison after he pleaded guilty to 11 charges of taking or making indecent photographs of children between April 1999 and August 2000.

He accessed the images from an American website and was caught following a US investigation after he downloaded a total of 488 images.

Police tracked him down through transactions made on his credit cards through the site, which was operated by a Texas-based company.

Police found the images on CDs, which he had transferred from his computer.

Most of the images found were categorised in order of severity.

Most found were level one, some level two and others were level four, with level five being the most serious.

There was also a movie file on one of the CDs.

The court ordered the destruction of both of the discs.

Brooks claimed he had forgotten he had downloaded the pictures and had not looked at them since February 2001.

Michael Wills, defending, told the court that his client had downloaded the images out of curiosity but urged the court to consider a non-custodial sentence.

He said Brooks had lost his job as a result of the proceedings.

"This young man is remorseful for what he did," said Mr Wills.

"He accepts that it was dreadful for himself and his partner."

Passing sentencing, District Judge Simon Cooper described the crime of downloading images of child pornography as disgraceful and said that those people who had taken the images had caused suffering to children.

He said: "I will not send you to prison today, you are a man with no previous convictions and a man of good character.

"You are a significant force for good in the community and I have taken into account that the chance of you re-committing is very low."

Anthony Osborne