AN evangelical Christian who accessed indecent images of child abuse told police it was ‘of lesser quality’ than material he had seen before.

Lorry driver David Cottington has already served a two-and-a-half year jail term for molesting young girls and viewing other pictures of child abuse.

But the 48-year-old admitted going back to his old ways and pleasuring himself as he viewed similar vile images at the end of the working week.

David Maunder, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court the father-of-four was put on a sexual offences prevention order when he was jailed in Sussex in 2012.

Part of the restrictions were a ban on him deleting the browsing history on devices and not having an online machine which didn’t store what sites he had accessed.

In October 2017 his offender manager made an unannounced visit to his home in Liden and looked at his computers.

When an iPad Mini he had bought that June was looked at it was found the internet history only went back 10 days.

As well as viewing legal pornography he accepted he had also accessed a Russian site notorious for images of child abuse and which had led to his earlier convictions.

He also accepted he had used incognito browsing so no trail had been left on the machine, Mr Maunder told the court.

When he was questioned he admitted he had visited the website between 30 and 50 times knowing it contained images of child abuse.

He said he had seen children for age four to 16 in titillating poses but no stronger material such as rape, visiting the site on Friday and Saturday nights after work.

“Worryingly, Mr Cottington expressed his disappointment: a reference that it is not good quality,” Mr Maunder said.

Cottington, of Murrayfield House, Twickenham Close, admitted breaching a sexual offences prevention order.

Tony Bignall, defending, said his client had references from a Reverend and another pastor from his church.

He said he is an intelligent and complex man but pointed out much of the evidence against him came from his own mouth.

“He is bordering on being a tortured man. He has certainly realised that he needs help. He remembers what custody is like, he went there in 2012,” he said.

Since the offending he said he had managed to get a number of friends through his church and has a history of being an evangelical Christian.

Passing sentence Judge Jason Taylor QC said he was concerned he still posed a risk to children, but felt it could be managed in the community.

“You made comments that you were disappointed that the images that you saw were of lesser quality than the images you had previously seen,” he said.

He imposed a 10-month jail term suspended for two years, told him to complete a sex offenders’ course, 30 days rehabilitation activity requirement and pay £150 costs.