DEPRAVED former teacher Paul Sear was today starting a 15-month jail term for downloading child pornography pictures.He was sentenced on the same day former Cambridgeshire police constable Anthony Goodridge was jailed for six months at Ipswich Crown Court for possessing child pornography.

DEPRAVED former teacher Paul Sear was today starting a 15-month jail term for downloading child pornography pictures.

He was sentenced on the same day former Cambridgeshire police constable Anthony Goodridge was jailed for six months at Ipswich Crown Court for possessing child pornography.

Goodridge worked on the investigation into the murders of Soham schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

Bury St Edmunds Crown Court heard former Stowupland High teacher Sear, 54, had copied onto his computer 1,800 indecent photographs of children of mixed ages.

Some of the six images included adults having sex with children and one included a child involved in a bondage act.

Sear, of Burrell Road, Ipswich, admitted 20 charges of making – copying – indecent photographs of children between January 2001 and May 2002 and one of distributing indecent photographs of children between August 2001 and May 2002.

Christopher Morgan, prosecuting, told Bury St Edmunds Crown Court, Sear's arrest stemmed from an investigation into child internet pornography in America – one of thousands arrested around the world.

The former physics teacher was traced via an e-mail address. Police raided his Hadleigh home in May last year, seizing computer equipment.

Sear had also placed adverts in contact magazines. In one he used his Stowupland High School address and his reply was opened by another member of staff.

In mitigation, Kate Davy, told the court Sear had no previous convictions.

She said Sear worked in other schools, including one in Ipswich, and there was no suggestion he behaved inappropriately at any of the schools he taught in.

Meanwhile Anthony Goodridge, 34, of Ely, Cambridgeshire, had admitted possessing 300 indecent images of girls as young as four and was jailed for six months.