A FORMER Scoutmaster who kept photographs and videos showing the sexual torture of children was caught when police found a home-movie made for him by a North-East paedophile.

David Daines, 44, was caught with a camcorder tape of a nine-year-old boy who had been groomed for sex by fellow Scoutmaster Paul Woodruff.

The youngster was heard to say: "This is for you uncle David," before he was molested by Woodruff, of Middlesbrough, a former member of the Scouts Association, and the breakaway Baden-Powell Scouts Association.

Police found correspondence between the two men at Woodruff's home after his arrest in 2001.

Woodruff was convicted of the rape and two indecent assaults of a teenage Scout two years ago. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Woodruff was driven by neighbours from his council house on the Brambles Farm estate, Middlesbrough, after a former Scout reported him to the police.

Officers also discovered that Woodruff, who arranged Scout camps with Daines in the North-East, may have been part of a nationwide paedophile ring.

Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court heard yesterday how the Cleveland investigation led the Metropolitan Police to Daines, who was the "uncle David" referred to on the tape.

Until recently, Daines was an IT manager at a Wembley building firm, and used his computer skills to hide his tracks and destroy a great deal of evidence when he heard police were on his trail in 2001.

But detectives were merely biding their time and returned to Daines' home in December 2003.

Home-made video cassettes were recovered, together with computers storing thousands of images of children being abused by adults.

The court heard that 90 of the most serious images depicted sexual torture in which children as young as four or five were abused.

The hoard is believed to date from 1996, when married Daines, of Somervell Road, South Harrow, Middlesex, had just left his job as leader with the Baden-Powell Scouts Association, where he had met Woodruff.

He was sacked in 1995 after bosses learned he had a conviction for possessing an indecent image of a child under 16.

A jury found him guilty of similar charges last month.

Daines denied eight sample counts of possessing indecent images of children and two of making indecent images of children, but was convicted by the jury.

Jailing him for 15 months, Judge Timothy Lawrence said: "You still maintain a complete lack of remorse for the possession of these images."

Daines was banned from working or having unsupervised contact with children for life, and will also have to sign on the sex offenders' register for life.

Detective Constable Jeff Ingledew, of Cleveland Police, who led the investigation into Woodruff, said: "Cleveland Police supplied the Met with evidence from the Woodruff case, which led them to Daines, and they said that was a great help in establishing the links.

"We remain more than suspicious that this pair have associates that are still out there.

"It is not the end, but could merely be the tip of the iceberg.

"We have got to keep plugging away at these people and hope that more victims, who are undoubtedly still out there, will come forward so we can bring them to justice."