CHILD pornography is big business. The global crackdown on Internet paedophilia, Operation Ore, has identified hundreds of thousands of people paying to download horrific images of children being sexually violated.

This is not a passive crime. Every individual who seeks out this sort of material is as complicit in the abuse of children as the person taking the pictures.

Charles Holdaway had nearly 350 appalling pictures of children on his home computers.

Holdaway's conscience as a parent proved no deterrent. Some of the images were even found on his daughter's computer, potentially exposing her to some appalling sights.

At York Crown Court yesterday Holdaway was sentenced to a three-year community rehabilitation order for child pornography offences. Judge Scott Wolstenholme said this would be a better way than prison to stop him reoffending.

Unfortunately, the leniency of this sentence does nothing to reflect society's abhorrence at the child sex slavery that Holdaway's actions help promote.

It also sends out entirely the wrong signal. Others like him will be encouraged to carry on their perverted pursuits if they think they risk only a three-year order.

Holdaway's sentence came on the same day that a Joseph Rowntree Foundation report insisted that too little was being done to bring to justice those who sexually abuse children.

If we are to save hundreds of children from a life of misery, the justice system must show itself utterly intolerant of their abusers, both real and virtual.

Updated: 10:22 Tuesday, November 16, 2004