CINDERFORD man Andrew Cuss, who committed serious child porn offences while living above his family's reptile shop opposite a youth centre, has walked free from court.

The 33-year-old, who now lives in a probation hostel, thanked Judge William Hart for giving him a two-year community order at Gloucester Crown Court.

Cuss had admitted downloading worst category level five pornographic videos of children from the internet.

The court was told the images were found after he had been interviewed by police about unconnected matters, of which he was found to be completely innocent.

Cuss admitted eight charges of possessing indecent images of children.

Sentencing, Judge Hart said sending him to prison for a short time would not help him and he had been doing well since living at the probation hostel.

As well as the supervision order for two years, Cuss was ordered to sign the sex offenders' register for five years and was made the subject of an indefinite sexual offences prevention order.

He was also ordered to continue living at the hostel for a further six months.

Prosecuting, Julian Kesner told the court: "On his computer, police found a total of 32 videos and images and these are covered by the eight charges he has admitted.

"One of the videos was the level five video clip and 21 were of level four. Mr Cuss has no previous convictions of any kind."

James Cranfield, defending, said there were both probation and psychiatric reports but these provided contradictory evidence of Cuss's interest in paedophilia.

"He understands that for this sort of offence a prison sentence is likely but I strongly urge the court against that," he said.

"His early guilty plea and the limited nature of his intelligence may allow the court to take a different view.

"He has taken steps to deal with his drink problem and has not had any alcohol for 12 weeks.

"He has taken the help offered by staff at the probation hostel and now presents as a very different man. As well as being branded a paedophile, he was also branded in relation to far more serious cases which were wholly false and may have been malicious.

"He is an extremely vulnerable young man and advantage would be taken of him if he were given a prison sentence today."

Judge Hart said that the short prison sentence he could impose would only be counterproductive and Cuss was only likely to be rehabilitated by successful treatment in the community.

As well as the community order, Cuss will also be the subject of a two-year supervision order so that he can continue to get help from the probation service.