A FATHER-of-two has been put on a sex offenders’ programme after he was found with indecent images of children on his computer.

David Dawson had also entered terms like ‘pre-teen nude’ and ‘young girl nude’ into search engines on his computer.

The 39-year-old told police that could have been done by someone else in the house, but admitted it was him after officers had taken statements from his sons aged 17 and 15.

Roxy Cole, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court that police went to Dawson’s home in May 2007 following a complaint and took away his computer.

He was spoken to by officers and at first denied ever viewing porn but eventually accepted he had seen adult web sites but never anything to do with children.

The computer was examined and found to have just under 100 indecent images of children, almost all at the lower level of seriousness.

She said the search inquiries were also uncovered and it was found they had been typed in between 6.20am and 6.50am.

He was spoken to again and initially denied typing the phrases saying someone else may have done it.

But he admitted he was the only one up at that time after his teenage sons gave statements to the police.

In a final interview he admitted seeing the images and that he had done so for sexual gratification.

Miss Cole said none of the images had been stored on the machine by the operator but had been recovered from an area where the computer keeps data.

Dawson, of Poplar Avenue, Pinehurst, admitted making and possessing indecent images of children.

He had initially pleaded not guilty but changed his plea on the morning of his trial after a judge indicated he would not pass a custodial sentence.

Lucia Whittle-Martin, defending, said there were fewer than 100 images of children over the age of 13, none were stored and the viewing had taken place over seven months.

Passing sentence Judge Douglas Field said: “The number of images was relatively small and the vast majority were at the lowest possible level.

“This activity was over a very short time and the images weren’t saved to disc nor were they distributed in any way.”

He imposed a two-year supervision order with an accredited sex offender treatment programme. The judge told him he must register as a sex offender for five years and ordered the confiscation of the material.