A FATHER accused of downloading child porn images from the internet was jailed for 18 months following his conviction after trial.

Frederick Brown showed no emotion when the foreman of the jury returned guilty verdicts on five charges of downloading child porn.

Judge John Roberts said that Brown had been rightly convicted by the jury of downloading "absolutely filthy images" and ordered him to sign the Sex Offenders Register on his release for 10 years.

Frederick Brown had claimed that he visited adult porn sites on the internet and downloaded images from the sites which he claimed also included images of children.

He told the court that he found such images despicable and refused to look at a folder of the pictures while he was giving evidence.

At Bolton Crown Court, Brown had denied five sample charges of creating an indecent photograph or pseudo photograph of a child between January 1 and June 7 1999 while living at the family home in Prestwich.

Brown, who had moved to Santley Street, Longsight, Manchester, admitted an interest in adult porn but claimed that the images of child sex had been downloaded accidentally and that when he saw them he deleted them.

Computer experts had managed to retrieve 164 obscene images from the hard disc drive of his computer even though he had deleted the images or partially written over them. There were 27 porn images on the floppy disc, 12 of children and 15 of adults.

The case came to court when Brown's wife Jill told police about his activities.