A LORRY driver has been convicted of downloading and distributing indecent photographs of children following a joint internet chatroom sting operation between police in Hampshire and the United States.

Clifford Winter, 56, of Hearsey Gardens, Blackwater, was sentenced at Winchester Crown Court to five years in prison, and faces a further five years of supervision after his release. His name will be on the sex offenders register for life.

Winter (pictured) pleaded guilty to 18 different counts, including taking indecent photographs of a child, recording indecent digital images of a child, and the distribution of indecent photographs.

The court heard that in November 2001, police recovered more than 38,000 digital images stored on his home computer, which included more than 40 hours worth of moving images.

Hampshire police officers turned their attention to Winter following a tip-off from colleagues in the States. He had been involved in internet correspondence with what he thought was a 14-year-old boy but was actually a member of the United States police force.

Using what Winter said in his correspondence, the American police alerted Hampshire Constabulary that he may be involved with under-age boys.

Detective Constable Nigel Corbould, of the Hampshire Police special investigations department, said this was the first time the force had ever caught a paedophile in this way.

He said: "American law allows them to do things that perhaps we would not be able to do in Britain. The Americans gave us information that he may have had children with him on the night we arrested him.

"When we went to his house, the lights were on but nobody was home. We waited 20 minutes and he showed up with two boys in his car."

Det Con Corbould said Winter was arrested, his house searched and computer recovered.

"There was a phenomenal number of images on his computer. He had made more than 10,000 of these images himself."