A FORMER Ely police officer who downloaded child pornography on his computer has walked free from court. Martin Jenkins, 54, who was an acting sergeant and lived in Fordham, was fined £2,600 after admitting possessing indecent pictures of children and 12

A FORMER Ely police officer who downloaded child pornography on his computer has walked free from court.

Martin Jenkins, 54, who was an acting sergeant and lived in Fordham, was fined £2,600 after admitting possessing indecent pictures of children and 12 offences of making indecent images of children.

Police officers who seized Jenkins' computer discovered that he had been actively searching for indecent pictures of children between December 2003 and his arrest in November 2004, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Robert Sadd, prosecuting, said that Jenkins had typed phrases such as "pre-teen models" into search engines, which made it quite clear what he was looking for.

Mr Sadd said that of 3,000 images on Jenkins' computer, 23 were indecent images of children. He said that on a scale of one to five, with five being the most serious images, 17 were at level one, two were at level two, three were at level three and one was at level four.

"Of the child images, the huge majority were not criminal," he added.

In addition to fining Jenkins £200 for each offence, Judge John Holt ordered him to sign the sex offenders' register for five years.

Simon Spence, for Jenkins, said that his client, who now lives with his wife in Brittany, France, had no previous convictions.

He urged the court to accept that the offences admitted by Jenkins did not cross the custody threshold.

He said that Jenkins was in receipt of a police pension of £1,000 per month and had savings of £8,000.

Mr Spence said the court case had been hanging over Jenkins for 18 months and had involved him travelling backwards and forwards to France for court hearings at a cost of £1,500.

Following the case, a spokeswoman for Cambridgeshire police said that Jenkins retired as an acting sergeant before the offences came to light, and was a civilian supervisor in the force control room at the time of his arrest by Suffolk police. He was suspended and later resigned.

After the hearing, prosecutor Mr Sadd said: "This case shows that a person's position, even within the police force, will not protect them from prosecution.