BABIES as young as 12 months were seen being sexually abused in photographs found on a store manager’s computer system, Maidstone Crown Court was told.

In all, more than 1,000 indecent images involving children were discovered on a series of discs owned by bachelor Tregarron Cross, of Donemowe Drive, Kemsley, near Sittingbourne.

But the 27-year-old, who admitted six offences of making an indecent photograph of a child and six of distributing indecent photographs, walked free after a judge made him subject to a three-year community rehabilitation order.

Judge Keith Simpson said he felt that the order, coupled with a condition to attend a treatment programme for sex offenders, would make it less likely than a prison sentence, that Cross would ever again involve himself in anything similar.

Prosecutor Lesley Bates told the court that Cross was arrested a year ago during the course of a police operation mounted by the obscene publications internet unit based at Charing Cross police station.