Child porn cricket coach jailed

An England cricket coach who admitted downloading child pornography on a laptop owned by the national cricketing board has been jailed for six months.

Strength and conditioning coach Marques Church, who was born in New Zealand, spent £23,165 for a month's use of a 3G internet card issued with the computer.

Experts found 13 video clips of child pornography on the laptop's hard drive.

Church, 31, who lives in Loughborough, Leicestershire, admitted five offences of making indecent images.

These are disgusting offences and they merit a prison sentence, and a prison sentence you will serve Judge Michael Pert QC

He was told he would serve at least half of his prison sentence.

Church, who lives near the ECB National Cricket Academy, was appointed last year to improve the fitness of star cricketers including Michael Vaughan and Kevin Pietersen.

Judge Michael Pert QC said at sentencing at Leicester Crown Court: "That sort of material is wholly unacceptable.

"It has only been brought about by the exploitation of young children, often not in this country but in countries where there is not a lot of money, and that exploitation is far easier to perpetuate.

"You have fuelled that."

Christopher Kessling, prosecuting, told the court how Vodafone had contacted the head of IT at the ECB to flag up the extremely high internet charges.

Church was arrested and admitted downloading pornography which he found using internet search terms such as "young girl" and "pre-teen hardcore".

The 31-year-old said he would watch each clip once before deleting it.

Defence barrister Jennifer Carter-Manning said her client was going through a relationship break-up at the time of the offences.

Judge Pert told Church: "We have to take these matters seriously, whatever your personal mitigation might be.

"These are disgusting offences and they merit a prison sentence, and a prison sentence you will serve."