A PINEHURST paedophile has avoided being sent straight to prison.

Richard Gordan Soffe admitted making 32 indecent images of children. They included one child sex abuse image judged to be in the most serious category. The majority of the pictures, 25 in all, were deemed to fall into category C by prosecutors.

But the 53-year-old, of Bedwyn Close, has avoided an immediate prison sentence.

Instead, he was sentenced at Swindon Magistrates' Court to 36 weeks imprisonment, suspended for 12 months. If he commits another offence in the next year he faces the prospect of being jailed.

Soffe must also complete 60 hours of unpaid work and attend 40 appointments with probation. He will have to sign on to the Sex Offenders' Register for the next decade.

Magistrates also ordered him to pay costs of £85 and a £115 victim surcharge.

A computer and phone seized by police will be destroyed, the court ruled.