A TEACHER who downloaded hundreds of films of child abuse has walked from court.

Iain Moore was a caught after colleagues at Swindon Academy spotted indecent images of children on his work computer.

But after hearing the 46-year-old's career lay in tatters and he was taking steps to address his problems a judge imposed a community order.

Tessa Hingston, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court the matter came to light when staff monitoring school laptops found what appeared be indecent images.

The police were called in and when it was found that Moore had been using the equipment he was investigated.

A USB drive was recovered and it was found to contain 298 films of child abuse stored on it.

She said 91 of them were in the most serious of the three categories, 94 in the middle band and 113 at the lower end.

On his school laptop officers found 11 images, none in the worst category, with a further six on another computer.

Moore, of Oatlands, Grange Park, pleaded guilty to four counts of possessing indecent images of children.

Philip Morris, defending, said his client had never been in trouble with the police before and had now ruined his career as a teacher.

His client has been apart from his wife and children since his arrest, he said, and they hoped at some stage to reconcile.

The matrimonial house is currently on the market and when it is sold he said his client would probably be leaving the Swindon area.

He said the images recovered from the memory stick were on unallocated clusters, he said, meaning they had been deleted.

Analysis of the hardware indicated that the material had not been accessed since 2013, he told the court.

He said Moore had sought help from the Lucy Faithful Foundation, which runs course for sex offenders, and is due to start one in January.

Passing sentence Judge Peter Blair QC said: "I have been persuaded my Mr Morris in his helpful submissions to me that the proper way of dealing with you is by way of a two year community order.

"You will be required to do 20 hours rehabilitation activity requirement days as they will be instruct you and you will be obliged to attend their internet offender treatment programme.

"I am persuaded by your remorse, your lack of convictions at 46, your loss of employment and the lack of opportunity open to you in employment."

He told him he would have to register as a sex offender for five years and also abide by a sexual harm prevention order restricting his internet use.

And he added: "You are likely to be barred by the disclosure and barring service from working in any capacity with children."

More will also have to pay £300 costs and a £60 victim surcharge, though his defence was funded by his trade union as he offended at work.

Following an earlier appearance in court, a spokesperson for Swindon Academy said: "On discovering these images the school immediately informed the police and we have assisted them throughout their enquiries. It is thanks to our stringent internal checks and monitoring that these images were discovered.

"We have been assured by the police that none of the images in his possession had any link to the academy but nevertheless this is distressing and understandably concerning.

“We can confirm that Mr Moore is no longer an employee of the academy.”

An NSPCC spokesperson for South West England said: “This was a truly shocking case in which Moore completely abused his position of trust as a teacher.

“Every single image is a crime scene and the youngsters in these pictures are victims of abuse whose horrific experiences should not be underestimated.

“More needs to be done to tackle this vile trade and cut this material off at the source, but even then there is no guarantee that these images will ever disappear from the web and, with every click, victims are re-abused. The sheer numbers of people viewing child sexual abuse images online must be addressed as a social emergency.

“Any adult with concerns for the welfare of a child or young person can call the NSPCC’s helpline on 0808 800 5000. Children can call ChildLine on 0800 1111.”