A MAN who imported a child-like sex doll has been handed 200 hours of unpaid work and put on the sex offenders' register for five years.

Ritchie Plumb, 37, from Minety, was given the sentence at Swindon Crown Court yesterday after Police found around 2,000 indecent images of children on his computers and phones.

He was charged with two counts of improper importation of an obscene/indecent article, for the child sex dolls, which were later dropped, and a further offence for possessing indecent images of children.

Lucy Asadi from Wiltshire Police’s Child Internet Exploitation Team, said: “Very often these types of offenders lie to others and themselves about the impact of viewing indecent images of children. However, we want to stress that these images depict sexual abuse being committed against innocent young children and that this is not a victimless crime.

“We want to reassure the public that we are actively investigating and prosecuting people, who view, download and distribute indecent images of children; we are working very hard to ensure they are brought to justice.”