A NORTH Yorkshire teacher has been jailed for four months for downloading child pornography from the internet.

William Graham Chilton, 53, who taught science at Selby High School, was caught as a result of Operation Ore, a massive FBI operation to crack down on the users of child pornography, York Crown Court heard.

The married father had subscribed to an American website using his credit card to access pornography and when his details were passed on to the British police a total of 99 indecent images of children were found on his computer.

Chilton, of Broad Manor, North Duffield, pleaded guilty at Selby Magistrates Court in November to nine charges of making indecent images of children between January 1999 and October 2002.

Simon Jack, prosecuting, said most of the 99 images found on Chilton's computer were of young girls posing in the nude.

But he said five of the images were of children involved in sexual acts with adults.

He said Chilton told police he had started looking at the images to discover how easy it would be for his pupils to find indecent material on the Internet.

But Chilton admitted he had viewed child pornography on a regular basis until shortly before his arrest.

David Bradshaw, for Chilton, said that on a number of occasions pornographic images appeared on Chilton's computer without his asking for them.

He said Chilton admitted paying to view child pornography and conceded that he had been in the wrong.

The Honorary Recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman, told Chilton as he sentenced him to four months in prison that while he had done a lot of good for children in his role as a teacher he had disgraced himself in the eyes of many and his career was likely to be over.

He said: "You gave some encouragement to a vile industry which has at its core the corruption of young children."

He said: "I simply don't believe the excuses that you were doing research or that some of the images simply popped up on your screen. You were viewing these images in order to gratify yourself." Judge Hoffman ordered the confiscation of the images and computer equipment.

Chilton was put on the sex offenders' register for seven years.

Updated: 11:29 Saturday, January 04, 2003