CURIOSITY got the better of shift worker Stephen Lange when the opportunity to look at sordid pictures of children appeared on his computer, Southampton Crown Court heard.

He later took the machine for repair at specialist dealers, complaining it had been infected with a virus.

But when the engineer switched it on, he immediately discovered the indecent images and contacted the police, said prosecutor Rachel Robertson.

Lange, 61, of Bedford Place, Southampton, admitted 12 charges of making 58 indecent images.

Judge Derwin Hope heard some of the children involved were as young as three, and about a third of the images involved penetrative sex.

Lange, of previous good character, received a 12 months suspended sentence with 12 months’ supervision and a £100 victim surcharge fee as well as an order to do 120 hours’ community work.

He was further placed on the sex offenders’ register for ten years and made the subject of a sexual offences prevention order to run indefinitely.

Chris Gaiger, defending, said that Lange had been looking at adult pornography when curiosity got the better of him to look at the other images.

He said: “He is deeply ashamed and remorseful. He should have turned the computer off. He sent the images into temporary Internet files but didn’t know how to retrieve them.”

Mr Gaiger added: “He doesn’t want to have another computer so temptation won’t come his way again.