Father Stephen Pickering 'made' child porn photos

A Father-of-four who hoarded hundreds of images of child pornography on his computer has avoided a jail sentence.

Stephen Pickering, 53, of Gloucester Road in Trowbridge, had also transposed the heads of his daughter?s friends on to sickening pictures downloaded from the internet.

But after hearing how Pickering was suffering from depression and had carried out the offence under the influence of drink and cold remedies he escaped a jail term.

Richard Thomas, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court on Tuesday how Pickering had been caught following two separate incidents.

The police first became involved after the defendant left his computer at his former home in Braydon and the daughter of the landlord eventually handed it to the police.

On that machine he said officers found 28 indecent images of young girls posing in a sexual way.

They also found pseudo images where the head of one of his daughter?s friends had been transposed on to a download picture and another with another of her friend?s faces on it.

Mr Thomas said Pickering was arrested in relation to another matter and as a result of that his home computer was examined.

They found 337 indecent images of children, most around 13-years-old, on the hard drive and a further 138 stored on two floppy discs.

When questioned by police he told them he could not recall making the images.

He said he was suffering from depression and had taken a combination of medications which had left him ?out of it?.

Pickering admitted five counts of taking indecent images of children and one of having them.

Tabitha Macfarlane, defending, said her client had been abused as a child and may be suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

She told the court that her client was the father of four children under five years old and is described as an ?amazing father? by his partner.

Judge William Hart imposed a three-year community order and told him to go a Thames Valley sex offenders? programme and an alcohol treatment requirement.

Pickering will also have to register as a sex offender for five years but he was not banned from working with children.

This is Wiltshire