A MAN aged 51 who took child pornography pictures to his workplace at a Cotswold hospital has walked free from court.

Robin Morse admitted seven charges of making indecent images of children.

A Gloucester Crown Court judge was told that Morse, of The Sherry, Temple Guiting, near Cheltenham, had 68 indecent images on his computer.

Eric Waley, prosecuting, said 46 of the images were at level 4 - the most serious child porn images are categorised at level 5 - with seven level 3 images, five at level 2 and 10 at level 1.

The offences came to light, said Mr Waley, when Morse took computer print outs of some images to work at the Moore Cottage Hospital in Bourton-on-the-Water. His colleagues saw them and alerted police.

When interviewed by police, Morse, who has no previous convictions, admitted downloading and storing the images, Mr Waley said.

Tim Burrows, defending, said Morse had been extremely candid with the police and in his interview with the probation service.

He had taken the images to work with the intention of destroying them in an incinerator, said Mr Burrows.

Judge William Hart, in sentencing Morse, told him this was not a case where you had a "vast library" of indecent images.

He said Morse had "distorted thinking" regarding the images and jailing him would have little benefit to him or to society in changing those attitudes.

He sentenced Morse to a three-year community order, three years' supervision and to attend for 60 days on a sex offenders' programme run by Thames Valley Police.

Morse was ordered to sign the sex offenders' register for five years and disqualified from working with children.

Judge Hart also made a sexual offences prevention order and ordered the forfeiture and destruction of the images. Morse was given three months to pay prosecution costs of £250.