A FORMER Cornwall Councillor from Bude has been made the subject of a community order, after he admitted to having some 548 indecent images of children on his home computers.

Mr Nathan Brett Bale, aged 31, of Penfound Gardens, Bude, pleaded guilty to having committed the offences between April 27, 2003 and June 7, 2011.

The court heard that on March 6, a legitimate website had been compromised by an unknown source and such a number of pictures of children were uploaded on to the site, that they caused it to crash.

Police arrested Bale at his home on June 7, and seized two computer towers, which were later examined.

The court heard that some 548 indecent images of children were found on the two towers, which had been made over a period of time.

Of these, 535 were at Copine level 1 and the rest at levels 2, 3 and 4. A number of searches against pornography sites had been made, as well as searches for 'how to clean my C drive', in attempts to remove the searches from the computers.

Defending Bale, Mr Chris Mitchell of Chris Nicholls solicitors, felt that the case fell into the lower bracket of sentencing.

He said: "A number of indecent images viewed are mostly in level 1."

Mr Mitchell told the court that the defendant had shown a great deal of insight into the offence and had voluntarily approached an organisation 'Stop it Now' — a child sexual abuse prevention campaign — and was due to have a face-to-face meeting.

For the full report, and a round up of the area news and sport, please see this week's edition of the 'Post'.