A SCOUT group assistant was rumbled by his leader for having a book detailing sex with pre-teen girls on an Amazon Kindle.

John Cockroft, who kept dozens of indecent images of children on two laptops, was sentenced today at Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester.

Cockroft had been a helper with the Timperley Scout Group since 2011 but was rumbled by his group leader on a camping trip to Dunham Park in June, 2013.

As the camp was being dismantled, the leader was horrified to find Cockroft’s Kindle contained a book containing detail about sex with pre-teen and pre-pubescent girls.

She confronted him and the married father-of-two begged her not to take the matter further, even trying to snatch the Kindle back.

She called police and Cockroft, aged 47, denied wrongdoing to them initially, likening the book to the novel Lolita, and said he did not possess any child pornography.

He had also given them two laptops, which were later found to contain numerous indecent images of children.

Cockroft, of Regent Road, Lostock, pleaded guilty to 12 counts of making indecent images, two counts of possession of prohibited images and one count of failure to comply with a court order to give police computer passwords.

He was given a three-year community service order, required to attend three-year sexual therapy programme and a three-year supervision order.

He also received a five-year sex offender notification order and five-year sex offender prevention order.

On one of the laptops, police found two encrypted files which they could not crack.

Cockroft was repeatedly asked to provide passwords but refused and ignored a court order to give the passwords to police.

Police reassured parents of children in the group yesterday that no evidence has been found to suggest physcial abuse has taken place.

They described Cockroft as someone who creates a market for people who abuse children for profit.

Det Con Barry Conway said: "Firstly, I want to address parents of children who have attended the Timperley Scout Group and have come into contact with Cockroft who will understandably be anxious and concerned.

"I want to stress that we have no evidence to suggest that any physical abuse or contact offending has taken place.

"Nevertheless, the seriousness of downloading and possessing indecent images of children cannot be understated. By no means is the viewing of this material a victimless crime.

“It is people like Cockcroft who download and view child pornography that creates the market for those who abuse children and seek to profit by selling these awful images.”

He also praised the actions of the scout leader, adding: “Despite pressure from Cockroft, she acted on her concerns and took her safeguarding role seriously, allowing us to expose Cockcroft’s criminality.”