AN 82-year-old pensioner was arrested after a delivery driver spotted him viewing child porn on a large screen television.

Jack Craven was sitting in the living room of his home on Wilkinson Avenue, Little Lever, when courier Anthony Wild arrived at the house to deliver a parcel.

But Bolton Crown Court heard how he was alarmed when he glanced through the living room window and saw a picture of a naked eight-year-old girl in a pornographic pose on the television screen.

Brian Berlyne, prosecuting, told how the courier completed his delivery on December 9 2014, but had been “shocked” by what he saw and later reported it to police.

Officers obtained a search warrant and visited Craven’s home three days later where they seized electrical goods including a tower computer and laptop.

On the devices they found 236 of the most serious category A child porn images, including some of children as young as one being raped. There were a further 193 category B images and 1060 images rated as category C.

Police experts discovered Craven had been deliberately searching for pornographic images of children, using “cleaning” software in an attempt to cover his tracks, and had stored the images in folders with names including “paedo” and “schoolgirl.”

Recorder Philip Parry was told that, even when charged with three offences of possessing indecent images of children, Craven, a grandfather-of-three, denied knowingly having the pictures.

He subsequently pleaded guilty.

Neil Fryman, defending, told the court how Craven has been married for 60 years and acts as a carer to his wife, who is standing by him.

He added that the pensioner is a man of previous good character.

“He will lose that now and it is a particularly bad way to lose it,” added Mr Fryman.

“Just coming to court having never appeared before a court before has had a real salutary effect on Mr Craven.”

Recorder Parry sentenced Craven to 10 months in prison, suspended for 18 months with 18 months supervision by the probation service.

“You have fallen from grace, Mr Craven, in the most spectacular of fashions, it seems to me,” Recorder Parry told the defendant.

“These sorts of images rightly repulse ordinary and decent members of society. It will repulse members of society to learn you had nearly 1,500 of them on your home computer.

“Mr Wild is to be commended for what he did that day.”

Craven was placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years, he will be subject to an indefinite sexual harm prevention order and is banned from working with children and vulnerable adults.