A PERVERT who was caught with indecent images of children on his computer was spared jail – but a judge told him: “These crimes are not without victims.”

Married father John Graham was part of a “file sharing” group when police raided his Hartlepool home and seized his electronic equipment in March this year.

Experts examined the machines and found photographs and films of children being abused, prosecutor David Crook told Teesside Crown Court.

An interrogation of the computers also showed that the 69-year-old had made internet searches for things such as “pre-teen hard-core”, the court heard.

Graham told officers that he initially searched for adult pornography, but was directed to images of children, and looked at them out of “curiosity”.

There were children as young as four on the clips, and one “extreme” image showed naked woman involved in a sex act with a horse, said Mr Crook.

Andrew Teate, mitigating, said he agreed with a probation officer’s report which recommended a suspended prison sentence and supervision for Graham.

Graham, of Tennyson Avenue, Hartlepool, admitted three charges of making indecent images of children and one of possessing extreme pornography.

The court heard that police found more than 250 photographs and moving images on the man’s computer tower, lap-top and hard-drive after their raid.

The Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, told him: “You, to the probation officer, indicated you had no interest in children. I do not accept it.

“You deliberately downloaded this material for your own sexual gratification. To the probation officer, you failed to appreciate the misery caused to children.

“It is sometimes thought and said by defendants ‘well, there are no victims, I’m watching images’. Well, there are victims. The victims are the children.”

Graham was given a ten–month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with 18 months of probation supervision. He was also put on the sex offenders’ register for ten years.