A RESPECTED computer engineer who downloaded child pornography from the Internet narrowly avoided prison yesterday.

Ralph Cummings, 52, his wife and their son were arrested after five computers were seized from their home of 25 years in Thornley, east Durham, by police.

Durham Crown Court heard that police acted on information that child pornography was downloaded on to a computer at that address, but it was unclear who was responsible. It resulted in Cummings' wife initially being suspended from her job as a teacher, and all three were interviewed by officers.

Geoff Taylor, prosecuting, said it soon became clear it was Cummings who downloaded the indecent images of children from a site.

Analysis of the computers revealed 12 indecent images were downloaded, including one each in the two most serious categories.

When interviewed, Cummings, described by Mr Taylor as a man who knew a lot about computers, accepted having deleted some pictures.

He accepted he sent four images back to the site as part of an arrangement with users.

Cummings said he accessed the pictures in the early hours after he took cannabis.

Alex Burns, in mitigation, said there were only 12 offending images, which his client accessed on only three occasions on an experimental basis. He said: "It was not quite a one-off, but it was a very short period of time."

Mr Burns said that despite being initially arrested, his wife has stood by him, and that Cummings has voluntarily sought psychiatric help.

Cummings, now of Grange Road, Hartlepool, of previous good character, admitted eight counts of making indecent photographs of children and four of distributing them.

Judge Peter Armstrong said that given the small number of images involved, the few occasions he accessed them and his previous good character, he was just able to avoid jailing Cummings.

He imposed a three-year community rehabilitation order, which includes attending a sex offender project.

Cummings must also sign the sex offenders' register for five years.