A MAN who downloaded lifelike computer game-style pictures of child pornography has been spared jail in one of the first cases of its kind in the country.

Robul Hoque was given a community punishment, but was ordered to sign on the sex offenders’ register for five years and undertake a treatment programme.

The 32-year-old created hundreds of images involving incest and child abuse which were found on a computer when police raided his home in October 2006.

Many of computer-graphic images were so realistic they were considered by a jury during a trial at Teesside Crown Court to be indistinguishable from photographs.

Police forensic experts said after the case that it was a legal first which had prompted calls for new legislation to tackle computer-generated child pornography.

The jury convicted Hoque of making six indecent images of a child after being told they must find him guilty if they believed they looked like photographs.

The images were part of an online comic strip which Hoque downloaded in the summer of 2000, which involved child abuse and incest, the court was told.

During the trial, David Brooke, prosecuting, said one of the images was entirely computer-generated, the other five were a “mish-mash” of computer graphics and real photography.

Judge Peter Bowers told unemployed Hoque, of Hardwick Road, South Bank, Middlesbrough, that he would not have been prosecuted had the images not been so realistic.

The judge said: “This was highly unusual case because the children involved were very much the product of a computer image. Effectively, they crossed the line of what is illegal and what is lawfully permitted. If it had been purely a comic strip it would have been perfectly lawful.”

After the hearing, Ray Savage, a forensic computer analyst for Cleveland Police, who has worked in the field for 13 years, said: “To my knowledge this is the first case of its kind.

“The jury examined nine ‘Lara Croft’-type images – not of Lara Croft, but computer-generated cartoon images of the quality you would see in a game like Tomb Raider.

“They were selected from among 1,235 images in total, covered by the indictment, which ranged from very crude ink and line drawings to the most sophisticated computer-generated ‘photographs’.”

He said new legislation was being considered aimed at dealing with pseudo-photographs.

He said such cases previously involved cutting, pasting and merging of photos.

“Until today, we have never had computer graphic or cartoon- type images deemed as pseudo-photographs and put before the court. To date it has not been an offence to have this kind of material.

“Though no actual child has been abused, it helps to feed the demand.”

Hoque, who looks after his elderly mother and has no previous convictions, said he came across the material through an internet search and became curious about comic-style pictures.

Cleveland Crown Prosecution Service’s Crown Advocate and hi-tech crime specialist, Harry Hadfield, said developments in computer software had enabled the creation of indecent images which were not photographs, but were so realistic that they look like photographs He added: “The outcome of this case has established that these detailed images of child sexual abuse qualify as indecent pseudo-photographs of children, the making of which is illegal.”