A MAN who made contact with a paedophile while downloading child sex abuse images on the internet has escaped being locked up.

But a judge told Bryan Maguire that he hoped he was "utterly and thoroughly ashamed" of himself.

The 58-year-old, formerly of Peregrine Drive, Sittingbourne, was given nine months imprisonment, suspended for two years, after admitting five charges of distributing the images, five of possessing them and two of making them.

He will also have to attend a sex offenders’ programme and was banned from working with children. He will be on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.

Maguire was arrested during an extensive investigation by Kent Police into child abuse coded named Operation Starlight.

Officers discovered that he was in contact with former Army major Archibald Wood, 60, of Tavistock, Devon, who was jailed for seven years for his part in a paedophile ring.

Jo Cope, prosecuting, said Maguire was using the identity "Killingjoke" in a chatroom forum. His home was raided in February last year and laptop computers seized were found to contain 197 indecent images.

Maguire admitted he had used a series of identities on the internet to discuss stories and swap images. He added that he was in turmoil about his sexual interests.

Judge James O’Mahony told Maguire that he was not remote at the end of his computer from the misery that was perpetrated on children.

"Without people like you to create disgusting emails of this kind of activity, images of these children would not be created," he said.

"You have contributed in a real sense to the misery of those children and what may be the ruining of their lives."