A FIRE safety consultant could have inadvertently downloaded child pornography Ipswich Crown Court heard.Stuart Hood downloaded two 30 second videos showing the sexual abuse of a young girl and added them to his “hidden folder” of adult pornography.

A FIRE safety consultant could have inadvertently downloaded child pornography Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Stuart Hood downloaded two 30 second videos showing the sexual abuse of a young girl and added them to his “hidden folder” of adult pornography.

The 34-year-old of Lowry Way, Stowmarket told police he had got the images “inadvertently” and had failed to delete them.

Robert Sadd, prosecuting, said: “There were only two so he was probably not actively out searching for this material but he did save them into a folder deliberately and had hidden that folder and went back to it to look at the images again.”

Hood pleaded guilty to two charges of making indecent photographs of child.

Lindsay Cox, mitigating, said: “If this was a man who had an interest in material such as this there would be more than two images. They were with a considerable amount of adult pornography.”

He said the internet was such that if someone put in a search for pornography all kinds of images would be found.

He said Hood had lost a job he did serving the public for 13 years and his life “spiralled downwards” as he started to drink “excessively” and he turned to the computer to look at adult pornography.

The court heard that Social Services were informed of Hood's offending because he lived with a woman and her child. However, Mr Cox said: “Social Services were not concerned by Mr Hood's behaviour.”

He said Hood had started his own business as a fire safety consultant and that one of his clients was a multi-national company.

Judge David Goodin said the videos were “deeply unpleasant” and at a high level four on the scale of indecency.

He said: “These are serious offences and portray a potentially unhealthy interest in you that if not suppressed could lead to further offending.”

Hood was placed on three year's probation supervision, told to complete a sex offender's treatment programme and disqualified from working with children.