A FORMER Hereford Cathedral chorister who admitted possessing indecent images of children has received a three-year community order and signed the sex offenders’ register for five years.

Judge Richard Rundell told businessman Robin Hickey, now of Brick Cottage, South Newington, London, that “normal people do not watch these films” and that the punishment would help address some “deep-seated problems” he clearly had.

“What you need is to go on the sex offenders’ treatment programme, because there is something there which requires attention,” he said.

Worcester Crown Court was told that 34-year-old Hickey, who employs a number of people through various graphic design firms and was a sponsor of the 2009 Three Choirs Festival, brought “shame and hurt” on his family after he was arrested in Hereford in January.

Police who apprehended him on another matter also took a laptop from his car and found it contained a sixminute film of a girl and boy aged about 10 years, as well as eight extreme pornographic images involving adults and animals.

The former Hereford Cathedral School student confessed in interview to looking at adult pornography on the internet, prosecutor Charles Hardy said, but denied responsibility for the film because others had access to his computer.

But he later admitted to having seen the first 35 seconds of the clip, during which explicit material did not feature, and said he did not know why he let others use his machine.

“The defendant is a successful businessman and part of that success meant he was entertaining clients in a social setting with alcohol, more than necessary, and it led to these parties at hotel rooms where this sort of material was downloaded,”

Clare Wilks, defending, explained.

As such Hickey initially denied the charge of possessing indecent images of children but, on the accepted basis that he only viewed it on the one occasion, this later became one of guilty.

As part of his punishment, the father-of-two, who also features on a 1989 Hereford Cathedral Choir recording of The Psalms of David, is also the subject of a five-year sexual offences prevention disorder, disqualified from working with children in any form and must pay £500 in costs.