Policeman sentenced for child porn

The court was told Needham regretted his action

A former Cumbrian policeman has been jailed for nine months for looking at pictures on the internet of children being abused.

Geoffrey Needham, 33, was freed on bail, pending an appeal, immediately after being sentenced at Kendal Magistrates Court on Monday.

Needham admitted to 12 charges at an earlier court hearing on 14 November 2002.

One charge related to inciting a company to distribute the pictures, by subscribing to websites, and 11 of making the pictures by viewing them on his computer screen.

Credit card

Needham was sentenced to five months on the incitement charge, and four months for looking at the pictures.

Magistrates also ordered that he should be placed on the sex offenders register for five years.

Needham was arrested in August last year after his credit card details were among the thousands found by the United States authorities, and passed to British police.

The court was told told he had looked at 166 pictures showing children being physically and sexually abused.

Needham resigned from Cumbria Police in November where he had been a police constable based in Barrow.