A man who had 1,800 indecent images of children on his computer has been banned from seeking any work which could give him unsupervised access to youngsters.

Simon Wilkinson, 30, had still and video images of children aged between six and 14 in his possession.

Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday that nearly all the images were at the least serious first level, but there were 36 images at level two, three each at level three and four and one at the most serious level five.

Sentencing him to a 12-month community order, with 250 hours of unpaid work and a 15-day activity requirement to include work to raise his victim awareness, Judge Peter Benson told Wilkinson: “The evil of this type of offending is that it encourages the making of images of young children who are abused for the gratification of adults.

“You seem to me to minimise your own culpability in this matter, saying they were downloaded by accident and you deleted them.

“But it’s clear from what was found that you were visiting child abuse websites on your computer, and you must have been looking at those images for sexual gratification.”

Judge Benson conceded Wilkinson had pleaded guilty, was a hard-working man of good character and his partner spoke highly of him.

Wilkinson, of Hill Street, Wibsey, Bradford, had pleaded guilty to two charges of possessing indecent images of children and one of possessing three extreme pornographic images, which showed adults having sex with an animal.

Prosecutor Alasdair Campbell said there was no suggestion of Wilkinson distributing the images and agreed there were few images at the highest level.

In mitigation, Wilkinson’s solicitor advocate Andrew Walker said his client had always maintained he had found the images as a result of exploring the internet for films and games.

He had pleaded guilty as a consequence of him going back to the sites, knowing the images they contained.

Judge Benson made Wilkinson the subject of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order, restricting his use of computers and preventing him seeking employment which might allow him unsupervised access to children.

He ordered him to register as a sex offender for five years, and to pay £1,200 prosecution costs.