Ex-teacher admits child porn charges

A former teacher and RAF musician has escaped jail despite admitting downloading and collecting child pornography.

Derek West, 58, from Eaton Socon in Cambridgeshire, pleaded guilty to 16 counts of making indecent images of a child, and asked for 177 others to be taken into consideration.

Huntingdon Magistrates' Court heard West had played before members of the royal family and other VIPs during his time in the RAF, before leaving to work as a private music teacher.

He was given a three-year community rehabilitation order and placed on the sex offenders' register.

West was arrested under Operation Ore, the transatlantic investigation into paedophile material on the internet.

The court was told he had worked in six schools in the Cambridgeshire area and given private music tuition at his home.