FORMER teacher Ian Barber downloaded hundreds of indecent images of children, a court heard.

The 61-year-old, of Westwood Park Avenue, Leek, pleaded guilty to six offences of making indecent images of children and possessing 477 indecent images of children.

His offending happened between August 2007 and March 2009.

He was last week sentenced to a three-year community order with supervision and a requirement he enters the community sex offender group programme.

He was also placed on the sex offenders' register for five years.

Judge Paul Glenn, sitting at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court, said the sentencing guidelines for the offences pointed to a community sentence or a very short custodial sentence, which would lead to Barber's release in days.

He said the community order was designed to protect the public.

Prosecutor Heather Chamberlin told the court indecent images of children were placed on an astronomy website for 72 hours and attracted four million hits.

Investigators found Barber had accessed the site. His house was searched on March 29 last year.

He told officers he viewed only adult porn but his computer was found to contain hundreds of indecent images of children.

In a later interview, Barber said he did view level one images of children, the least serious, and claimed he found the higher levels disturbing.

He said he found girls aged eight to 10 'pretty' and, in a provocative pose, attractive. He said he was ashamed for what he had done.

Paul Cliff, defending, said Barber had never been in trouble before and was devastated by the loss of his good name.

Judge Paul Glenn told Barber: "You used to work as a school teacher. You should have been more aware than most of child protection issues but you still committed these offences.

"People such as you, who seek out this material, encourage the activities of those who perpetrate the vile abuse of children. You were sexually aroused by these images and plainly attracted to children."