A FORMER teacher at a Rednal school, caught with child pornography on his computer, has been ordered to take part in a three-year sex offenders programme.

Wayne Ketcher lost his job at Colmers School in Rednal after he was found to have more than 1,100 indecent images of teenage girls and one of a girl as young as seven, Worcester Crown Court heard.

The 30-year-old, from Briar Close, Lickey End, pleaded guilty to seven charges of downloading child porn over a three-year period between April 2010, and April 2013.

Peter Grice, prosecuting, said police carried out a search warrant and found the porn on a computer in the bedroom of the PE teacher's home. He immediately confessed to viewing the images once or twice a week over three years. There was no evidence of sharing them, but he had sent emails making inquiries about more child porn, Mr Grice said.

Ketcher told police he had accessed adult porn on the internet and from there he had gone on to websites with images of children.

He admitted having 1,127 pictures and five moving images at level one, the least serious, involving girls aged between 11 and 14 in erotic poses.

He also had seven pictures and the same number of moving images at level two, involving a girl under 14; three pictures and one moving image at level three, and six pictures at level four with a girl aged seven.

In total 1,243 pictures and 13 moving images were found.

Charles Hamer, defending, said after his arrest, Ketcher had realised he had a problem and had contacted an organisation voluntarily to look for help.

Ketcher is now facing up to the end of his career, Mr Hamer added.

Judge Robert Juckes, QC, told him he had lost the job he had worked to gain qualifications for, because of the serious offences.

He said Ketcher would have been given a jail sentence if the community group work for sex offenders had not been available, but he will now be under supervision by the probation service for three years while he is on the programme.

He will not be able to do paid or voluntary work with children under 18 or have contact with girls under 18 without supervision. A sexual offences prevention order further restricts his contact with children for three years and he will be on the sex offenders register for five years.

He was also ordered to pay costs of £535.