A BT employee has been jailed for five months for owning more than 500 indecent photographs of children.

Andrew Walters, who lived in Steadmill Way, Thackley, but has since moved to rented accommodation in Manor House Croft, Adel, Leeds, was caught by the police's Operation Ore following an investigation by US postal authorities into a web server provider.

Magistrates at Dewsbury heard yesterday how Walters had 511 indecent images of children on his computer, some as young as five years old. Ten images were graded level four, one was level three, six were level two and three were level one. Level five is the most serious and level one the least.

As descriptions of the images were read to the court by prosecutor Stephen Gration, Walters, dressed in a black suit, white shirt and red tie, held his head in his hands, closed his eyes and looked at the floor.

Mr Gration told the court how police investigations revealed the 33-year-old had visited two sites called Nympho and payments had been made from his credit card. Police raided his home in Thackley in March and a computer tower and six floppy discs were among items seized. He was arrested and pleaded guilty to the charges at the court last month.

His solicitor, Ian Hudson, told the court that Walters had first looked at an adult internet site in 1999 and clicked on a tag leading him into a child site, on to which he registered.

"He accepts that over the last three or four years he has looked on the website," said Mr Hudson. "He's not someone who was using this daily, but sporadically over a period of time. He's very regretful, remorseful and ashamed of his behaviour."

He said Walters, who also cares for his mother, had tried to delete the images and had locked the computer away and bought a new one.

"Since his arrest, his life has been turned upside down," said Mr Hudson, who added that Walters' relationship had broken down and he was seeing a psychotherapist. "He's been employed for 12 years in the same job. He's been off sick with depression and had to see a doctor and had to break the news to his family."

Bench chairman Clifford Bromley said: "These are serious offences and over half of these images were at the higher level.

He added: "Custody is the only sentence appropriate to deal with them."

He was jailed for 20 weeks and will remain on the Sex Offenders' Register for seven years. Magistrates ordered the forfeiture of the computer tower and floppy discs.