A MAN who ordered child porn DVDs over the internet and asked for them to be delivered to the shop where he worked has narrowly escaped being jailed.

Paul Hopkins pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to inciting the distribution of indecent images and possessing 37 indecent images of children.

Hopkins (46) of Coldicote Farm Cottage, Evenlode Lane, Moreton-in-Marsh, was given a ten-month prison sentence suspended for two years after the Judge heard he suffers from Parkinson's disease.

He was also ordered to take part in a sex offender's treatment programme, banned from working, approaching or staying overnight in the same house as any child, to pay £500 costs, and will have to register as a sex offender.

Prosecutor Tom Schofield said that in 2005 the US postal service carried out a sting operation by posting adverts for DVDs on a known paedophile website.

Mr Schofield pointed out that the titles left no doubt as to their supposed content, with one described as cute little nine-year-old girl appears to get raped,' before going into further details of the acts performed on her.

In October that year Hopkins contacted the site and ordered six of the DVDs, paying for them by sending off a Travelex cheque for 180 dollars.

Hopkins was identified as the person who had ordered the DVDs, and he had given his place of work, a shop in Stratford town centre, as the return address.

That premises is alarmed, and so his home address was known because he was registered as the keyholder.

After Warwickshire police were informed, they searched his home in February 2006 and seized his laptop.

It showed Hopkins had subscribed to news groups associated with child pornography, and his toolbar showed he had made searches using words such as under-age' and paedo.' here were also 37 indecent images of children, including four from the two highest levels of seriousness.

But when he was questioned Hopkins denied the offences and blamed identity theft,' added Mr Schofield.

Christopher Hotten QC, defending, said that Hopkins suffers from Parkinson's disease, but does not blame any compulsive behaviour arising from that for the offences.

He said the 37 images found on Hopkins' computer was a very modest number' compared to many such cases.

And of the DVD order, Mr Hotten pointed out: "In fact what he did would never enable him to get further material because, unknown to him, he was sending the cheque to the US to people who had no indecent material to supply and never had any intention of sending that material to him."

When he accessed the images Hopkins was struggling to come to terms with his diagnosis and was not taking his medication properly, and his marriage was breaking down.

"He was arrested two years and one day ago. Stress is a very bad thing for someone suffering from Parkinson's to endure because it makes the symptoms worse. I submit this is a case in which immediate custody can and should be avoided."

Judge Charles Harris QC told Hopkins: "What you did which brought you to the attention of the authorities was to answer adverts... offering photos of children that you thought was a suitable thing to try to purchase.

"The evil in this case is not so much the perversion of your own sad mind, but the harm it causes to the children used to make such images. The horror of their childhood is unimaginable.

"It is particularly because of the fact that you are suffering from Parkinson's disease that I am planning to take the course I am taking, which is a charitable one."