I WISH to comment on an article in last week's Shuttle/Times & News concerning the college lecturer who downloaded pornography.

The article correctly reported that the court was told Anthony Machiocha was encouraged to engage in such activity "after seeing students printing off adult porn." This statement by his defence solicitor is strongly refuted by the college.

The college has always had an extensive IT "Acceptable Use Policy" successfully deployed amongst all its employees and students. Indeed, this was the first incident ever of this kind within Kidderminster College.

As the use of e-mail and the internet has increased, so too has the risk of these communications vehicles being deliberately or inadvertently misused.

We are not unique in our policies being open to misuse - the potential is expanding and the consequences are increasingly severe for all organisations.

However, I wish to stress that the incident was taken very seriously by the college.

Our primary concern was, and remains, the safeguarding of our students and our action to date has been to ensure their safety and well-being.

We have recently made further significant investment in a new and advanced web monitoring and filtering solution and will continue to review our policies and methods to try to safeguard against a repeat of this incident.

The individual concerned was suspended with immediate effect upon discovery of his actions and has subsequently been dismissed.

ANDREW MILLER

Principal and chief executive Kidderminster College

Market Street

Kidderminster