AN ARMY officer told a court yesterday how he traded in paedophile pornography on the Internet.

Major Andrew Shaw, who was the executive officer of the Cleveland Army Cadet Force, said he took obscene photographs of a schoolgirl and sent them to three paedophiles.

The Crown claims that Sandhurst-trained Shaw, 49, who lives in Barnard Castle, County Durham, offered to supply the pictures to a paedophile postman.

Shaw said he became interested in Internet child porn after separating from his wife of 20 years and moving to a flat in County Durham.

He told Teesside Crown Court that he chatted to hundreds of people on the Internet about child sex and that much of the talk was fantasy.

He said that most people's aim was to get hold of pictures of children having sex. He contacted a man known as Al, from Scotland, who sent him pornographic photos of his daughter, and asked him to send some back in return.

Shaw said he asked a schoolgirl if he could take photos of her and she agreed.

In some shots they were both naked, and he sent them to Al, to a man called Jamie, whom he met on a paedophile website, and also to Alan Lawson, an Isle of Wight postman.

Shaw said: "I have spoken to a lot of people about these photos. I got a lot of trades back. It effectively was a case that you would send them and he would send his pictures."

He added: "There was never any intention to do anything with the girl."

Shaw, of Queen Street, Barnard Castle, and Lawson both plead not guilty to conspiracy to rape and the alternative of conspiracy to commit gross indecency with the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, in February and March last year.

Graham Reeds, prosecuting, said that e-mails sent to Shaw by Lawson spoke of giving the girl a date-rape drug to knock her out for sex.

Shaw told the jury: "I would never ever harm her of any female."

The case continues.