A COMPUTER specialist discovered evidence of child pornography when he was called in to fix a computer belonging to 22-year-old Christopher Paul Robert Hows.

Blackburn magistrates heard that police, alerted by the IT expert, were later able to recover 80 child porn pictures which had been downloaded from the internet featuring children as young as five years of age.

And the court heard that there were also moving images featuring children engaged in sexual acts with adults.

Hows, of Hampden Close, Darwen, at the time of the offence in January, pleaded guilty to taking an indecent photograph of a child.

He was remanded on bail until July 6 after the magistrates ordered the preparation of pre sentence reports, indicating that they were considering a community penalty.

Claire Fanning, prosecuting, said Hows admitted being responsible for downloading the images. "He could not explain why he had done it but admitted that he had masturbated while viewing them," said Miss Fanning.

"The images involved children under the age of 10 and in some cases as young as five."

She said Hows was a man of previous good character.

Paul Schofield, defending, said it was his contention that the magistrates had, in view of recent appeal court decisions, sufficient power to deal with Hows, who has now moved to Essex.

Mr Schofield produced three case reports, one as recent as May, which suggested that a heavy fine was an appropriate sentence for a first time offender where there was no suggestion of distribution or financial gain.

"In the last six months the court of appeal has repeatedly indicated that cases of this kind can be dealt with at the magistrates court," said Mr Schofield.

He said Hows was ashamed of himself but it had to be stressed that his behaviour had been entirely private.

"There is no suggestion of any distribution of any kind of any of the material and it follows there was no commercial element," said Mr Schofield. "Absolutely no one else has been involved."

He said Hows repeatedly told the police that he had obtained the images by mistake.

"He says it was an accident and they were not what he was looking for," said Mr Schofield.