A self-employed air conditioning engineer who had indecent images of children on his computer has been given a community rehabilitation order and made to attend a sex offender programme.

Michael John Manley, 49, last month pleaded guilty at Dewsbury Magistrates Court to 20 charges of possessing images and returned to court yesterday for sentence.

Prosecutor Zaffar Siddique told the court how of the images found on Manley's computer, six were level one, seven were level two, two were level three and five were level four. Images are graded from one to five, with five the most serious.

They included photographs of children as young as two years old.

He said Manley was netted by the police's Operation Ore. This dated back to September 1999, when US postal services conducted an investigation into a company called Landslide Productions - a gateway to numerous other companies which provided access to adult and child pornography. US authorities raided the database and credit card details of subscribers were found and passed onto police in Britain.

As a result, Mr Manley's home, in Heatherside, Baildon, was raided on April 8, 2003, and a number of items taken away, including a laptop computer, a computer tower, compact and floppy discs. The CDs were found to contain 46 indecent images of children.

Mr Siddique said Manley was interviewed by police and denied ever going on a particular site but could not explain how his credit card details got there.

Robert Carr, mitigating, said he was a man of previous good character who had "no explanation" for the situation, which had led to a breakdown in his marriage.

Magistrate Alan Brook said: "Exploitation of children is abhorrent and although there's no direct sexual abuse by you, the fact that people pay to view these images encourages companies to abuse children on your behalf."

He made Manley the subject of a Community Rehabilitation Order with a condition to attend a sex offenders programme for three years. He also ordered Manley to pay costs of £60 and ordered the forfeiture of his laptop, floppy and compact discs. He will also be put on the sex offenders' register for five years.