The prosecution at Blackburn magistrates yesterday said some of the images represented "extreme" child pornography and that police investigations had revealed that McVitie had used 16 internet sites, including one in Moscow which he had to pay to register with. He was committed on bail for sentence at the crown court after magistrates decided the six months custody available to them was insufficient. His name was put on the sex offenders register.

John Wood, prosecuting, said 51 discs had been seized by the police and they contained 1,200 images. He said it was possible to come across pornography randomly when surfing the internet but that was not the case in this instance.

"We would say that this was a deliberate act, given the number of images and the fact that they had been downloaded and stored on discs," said Mr Wood. "The police have discovered that he had used 16 sites, including one in Moscow where money had been paid, but we can not say if any of the images came from that site.

"There were a total of 1,200 images and all of these show child pornography in one degree or another. A lot of them show quite extreme child pornography."

Michael Blacklidge, defending, said the court was dealing with something that had gone on in the privacy of McVitie's own home. "There is no evidence of inappropriate behaviour towards children and there is no evidence of any risk to the public," said Mr Blacklidge.

"His position in the chain of production was as low as it could be and there was no further dissemination of the material. He has not posted any of the material onto the internet."

Mr Blacklidge said McVitie had no idea of where the images had come from or any knowledge of their history. "He has accessed these images but there has been no physical abuse of children by him," said Mr Blacklidge.

Mr Blacklidge said that after leaving school McVitie had served an engineering apprenticeship. He formed a band with friends which Mr Blacklidge said had enjoyed success.

"He almost but not quite hit the big time in the pop world," said Mr Blacklidge.

He said that when the group folded McVitie went back to college and eventually embarked on a career teaching English as a second language, mainly to mature students.

At the time of his arrest McVitie was working up to 25 hours a week at Blackburn College.

He will now be barred from working with young people.

Today, Home Secretary and Blackburn MP Jack Straw said his new squad of cyber police set up to tackle computer crime would help prevent similar cases occuring.

It has GBP 25 million to tackle criminals from financial fraudsters to child sex perverts.