A FORMER newsagent caught in a joint police operation with the FBI for downloading child pornography from the Internet was jailed for a year yesterday.

Ian Thomas Waller, 45, a father of three children under 16, was caught with 530 indecent images of children aged between six and ten, including some which were classed as sadism.

A large number of printed images were found under his bed in Norton, Teesside, said Harry Hatfield, prosecuting.

When police arrived at Waller's home with a search warrant at 7.10am, on October 29, he told officers: "There is no need to search the house, I'll show you where the images are," said Mr Hatfield.

Police seized two personal computers, and sheets of paper containing indecent images along with some adult pornography.

Waller admitted purchasing access to websites offering child pornography and downloading the images.

Police computer experts discovered 300 indecent images of children and compact discs containing images, Tees-side Crown Court was told.

Waller's wife and family were said to be standing by him.

Jamie Hill, defending, said: "He was a newsagent but was forced out of business last year.

"It may not be without significance that at the time the business failed last year he started accessing adult pornography on the home computer, and during the course of that he accidentally came across indecent images of children.

"But then he accepts that he did on a number of occasions deliberately access websites."

Judge Peter Bowers told Waller: "The evil of these offences is that it encourages those who make these pictures to abuse children."

Waller, of Seaham Close, Norton, was jailed for a year after admitting 16 charges of making indecent images of children over a three-year period from January 1999 to April last year.

He was given a three-year extended period of licence so he could attend a sex offender's treatment programme on his release, and he was ordered to register as a sex offender for ten years.