A PARTIALLY blind pervert who downloaded 20,000 child porn images from the internet has been spared a jail sentence at Worcester Crown Court.

Paul Hawkesford, aged 39, was arrested after police swooped on his former home in Sebright Road, Wolverley, near Kidderminster, and seized his computer.

The pictures were of children and even babies in sexual acts with adults, said Adam Western, prosecuting.

The defendant, who has been registered blind for six years, told police that his life was not dominated by porn, but it was "just one of those things I got into" and took up about half an hour a day.

Hawkesford, now living in Lucy Edwards Court, Kidderminster, admitted 10 counts of making indecent pseudo photographs and five counts of distributing them to other computer users.

Judge David McEvoy QC branded him a voyeur and said it was unusual for a sex offender to admit his wrong-doing.

The judge added: "Such serious offences usually mean custody because children have to pose for the photographs. You got sexual gratification from looking at them and then swapped them."

But he said blindness would make Hawkesford very vulnerable in jail and he had shown contrition.

He gave him a three-year community rehabilitation order with a condition that he attend a sex offenders' programme. The defendant was also ordered to register as a sex offender for five years.

Hawkesford was caught in a 7am swoop last year during Operation Apall, a nationwide crackdown by police on internet porn.

He immediately confessed that he had thousands of child images and exchanged them with other people, said Mr Western.

Hawkesford lost the sight of one eye at six months of age and the other became partially blinded in an accident when he was 16.

But after being registered blind in 1996, he was unable to work and spent many hours a day on the internet for education, meeting people and games, said David Mason, defending. He used a magnifying glass and a special camera to scan books on to screen.

His home became a prison after his guide dog Fudge was taken away. He disputed a claim by a blind dog charity that the animal was malnourished.

"Sadly he developed an unhappy interest in material which he watched usually in the early hours of the morning," added Mr Mason.

He swapped the material with people he didn't know and made no commercial gain.

"He now understands the severity of the crime and expresses his shame and genuine remorse."

Mr Mason said Hawkesford had twice tried to commit suicide by taking painkillers and had also tried to get run over by a lorry.