A HEREFORD grandfather who downloaded child porn has been ordered to take a sex offender rehabilitation programme.

Supermarket worker Christopher Drugan used cleaning software to get rid of the history on his computer, Worcester Crown Court heard.

The 53-year-old pleaded guilty to having one category B and one category C image and two videos at category C, the least serious.

Gareth Walters, prosecuting, said police executed a search warrant at Drugan's home in Hunderton Road at 7am on January 29 this year while he was at home with his wife.

A laptop computer was sized and the images of children under 13 were found along with searches for other similar sites.

He had searched for images including 12-year-old Vietnamese girl sells her virginity and nine-year old Chilean girl molested by a neighbour, Mr Walters said.

Jason Aris, defending, said Drugan had expressed an appreciation of the harm caused by viewing child porn.

He said his offence had divided his family and some of them, including his wife, were standing by him but others were disgusted and wanted nothing to do with him.

Mr Aris said Drugan had been involved for a long time with helping to bring up his grandchildren but now faced the involvement of social services.

Judge Nicolas Cartwright said the images were not the most numerous or serious to come before the courts but that was largely because Drugan had regularly wiped the data.

"You yourself have a number of children and grandchildren," Judge Cartwright told him. "Imagine if it was one of them subjected to this sort of abuse posted on the internet. They would know the image could be found there for the rest of their lives. If you dwell on that for just a moment you will see how dreadful this is."

Drugan was given a three year community order with a requirement to attend a sex offenders work programme and a sexual harm prevention order restricting use of the Internet. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender for five years and to pay £600 prosecution costs.