The BBC's Mags Mackean: "This is seen as a landmark case"

The case was heralded as a major legal landmark in the fight against Internet porn because it showed the content of US-based sites could come under British jurisdiction.

Cyber sin: Waddon made £126,000 from the net

Graham Waddon, 28, played a key role overseeing a string of "cyber sin" sites from his terraced house in Surrey.

But his sites, with names such as Farmsex, Europerv and Schoolgirls-R'us, were all based in the US.

Southwark crown court heard that just one of the sites could earn him £4,500 per day.

Judge Christopher Hardy sentenced Waddon to 18 months imprisonment, suspended for two years. He said he accepted Waddon suffered from considerable health difficulties.

The judge also expressed concern that Waddon's American alleged partner-in-crime, former fireman Raymond McArthur-Jones, escaped prosecution in the UK after striking a deal with US authorities.

The judge said: "I'm told that he is currently in custody serving a sentence of 23 months in the US, having pleaded guilty to being involved in child pornography.

"You therefore Waddon alone remain to carry the burden of the sentence for these offences."

The court heard that for a monthly subscription of £20, customers were able to key in to a "revolting" variety of American-based Internet porn sites.

One such site made £19,000 in a single day.

New owner for operation

Despite the ground-breaking court case two of the sites continue to operate, their foreign base putting them beyond the reach of the UK police.

Duncan Atkinson, prosecuting, said that as far as the Crown could gauge, the operation now had a new owner, was being run from Costa Rica and no longer had anything to do with Waddon.

The operation had generated £607,000 profit for Mr McArthur-Jones, while Waddon earned more than £126,000, which he spent on a legitimate but ailing Website design company.

Teenage access 'unlikely'

Police confiscated £600-worth of computer equipment when they raided his home.

The judge said that because subscribers needed a credit card to access the porn sites, "it was unlikely lonely teenagers surfing the Internet in the small hours would have access to this material".

Waddon had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to 11 sample counts of publishing obscene articles on the Internet on or before June 1997.