A DISGRACED judge who downloaded child porn from a paedophile website was thrown out of the legal profession yesterday (Thursday).

David Selwood, 71, from Winchester, who had himself handled cases involving paedophiles, was spared jail last year after police found 75 photographs of naked boys aged between eight and 14 on his home computer.

He pleaded guilty to 12 charges of making indecent images and one of possessing indecent photos, and was given a 12-month community rehabilitation order.

Yesterday the father-of-four, who also had a distinguished career as a lawyer in the army, personally pleaded not to be struck off the Roll of Solicitors.

Selwood, who was accompanied by his wife Barbara, told the Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal in London he had sentenced many others for the same crimes, and found the pictures "unpleasant and repugnant".

But chairman Andrew Spooner told him his conduct was unbefitting of a solicitor.

Ordering that Selwood be struck off, Mr Spooner added: "The perception of the public and the damage upon the profession caused by these convictions is of paramount importance."

Selwood resigned from the bench after police raided his £550,000 home in Magdalen Hill, Winchester, on April 24 last year as part of a widespread operation into users of paedophile websites.

He later gave a prepared statement denying he was a paedophile but admitting there may have been something in his "subconscious".

Yesterday he repeated claims he made at the time of his arrest, that he had downloaded the images out of curiosity after dealing with similar cases as a judge at Portsmouth Crown Court.

He said: "I wanted to resolve for myself the seeming conflict between those authorities including those campaigning for greater protection for children, that such material was readily available on the net, and those who claimed they had stumbled upon them by accident.

"I accept it was wrong of me to interrogate the net in this way and what I did could not be classified as genuine research.

"What I did was a gross error of judgment for which I will forever regret."

He also told the hearing he was seeing his probation officer every month until July and had signed on the Sex Offenders' Register.

In addition to being struck off Selwood was also ordered to pay the £1,000 costs of the hearing.