IT manager Russell Morgan, who distributed indecent images of children over the internet, has been jailed for 16 months.

The father-of-two shared the pictures with 'like minded' people after engaging in disgusting online conversations in chat rooms.

The 57-year-old , of Curlew Drive, Chippenham, then sent packages of vile images of child sex abuse to three people.

Tessa Hingston, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court that Morgan was caught after police in north Wales were investigating a man for child sex abuse.

She said it became clear that he had been corresponding with a computer registered to the defendant.

Online chat showed they had been talking about pictures of children and activities with them, the court was told.

As a result of what they recovered the police raided Morgan's home, and a number of computers and storage media were seized.

Officer not only found 523 indecent images of children stored in files but also vast quantities of chat logs on Google Hello about 'paedophilia' and child abuse.

They also found that on three occasions in 2006 he sent packages of pictures of child abuse to people he had been corresponding with.

On the first he sent four low level images, then he twice sent a collection of 28 pictures, including some in the worst categories, to other users.

Miss Hingston said it was also found that he had put a series of vile terms into search engines as he sought out other images of abuse.

When he was questioned he initially denied knowing what Google Hello was, but largely accepted what was on the computers had been put there by him.

Morgan pleaded guilty to three counts of distribution, five of making and one of possessing indecent images of children.

Alex Daymond, defending, said that the amount of images recovered was not in the tens of thousands as the courts often see.

He said his client was a 'regular but infrequent viewer' of the material over a long period of time.

Mr Daymond said his client and society would be better served if he were to keep his liberty so he could go on a sex offenders programme to address his offending.

He said the offences represented Morgan’s first brush with the law.

Morgan, he said, hadn't told his employers about the situation, and felt he would probably keep his job if he was not jailed.

Jailing him Judge Euan Ambrose said: "These distribution charges, especially of the level four and five images, are the most serious charges before the court.

"They involved the circulation of the images. It has to be observed that each of these images involved a real child suffering real sexual abuse.

"This is not some victimless crime: it is the possession and distribution of images of real children.

"Of course you were not the abuser but your activities and the activities of other people who behave in such a way encourage the abuse of children."

As well as jailing him he imposed a sexual offence prevention order restricting his liberty, told him he must register as a sex offender for ten years and his name would be on the barred list from working with children.