A PERVERT in his 20s has pleaded guilty to downloading child pornography after his interest was stoked by media reports of the Madeleine McCann case.

A PERVERT in his 20s has pleaded guilty to downloading child pornography after his interest was stoked by media reports of the Madeleine McCann case.

John Riches, of Aldwych Close, Burnham, blamed a 'troubled childhood' and his inability to express his feelings for his actions.

The 25-year-old was sentenced at Bristol Crown Court on Monday to a three-year community order with a supervision requirement after admitting 11 counts of making indecent photographs of a child at an earlier hearing.

His Honour Judge Longman also ordered Riches to pay costs of �320, participate in a sexual offenders' treatment programme and to sign the sex offenders' register for five years.

John Weatherall, defending, said: "He was something of a closed book when I first represented him.

"He did say at the time that it was not sexual interest. He said his interest had been raised by reports in the media of celebrities looking at material and about issues such as the Madeleine McCann case."

Madeleine McCann was four years old when she became the centre of a storm of worldwide publicity after apparently being abducted from a Portuguese holiday resort in 2007.

Mr Weatherall described how Riches also became 'visibly upset' when asked to talk about his father.

The court heard how Riches had been deliberately burned by his dad with a lit cigarette when he was doing his homework one evening.

Nicholas Fridd, prosecuting, told the court that six of the 11 images Riches downloaded were 'category four', on a scale where five indicates the most severe.

He added that police had found a total of 50 images, which had been accessed when Riches had typed the word 'underage' into a piece of software he used for music and video file sharing.

Judge Michael Longman rejected Riches' claim that he had been guilty of naivety when looking at the images.

He said: "There are a relatively small number of images for this type of case.

"The aggravating feature was that a proportion of them were level four.

"That children are sexually abused is well-known and the notion that you were naive stretches credulity to an inordinate extent.

"I take into account the matters in the pre-sentence report and mitigation, including your guilty plea at the earliest opportunity.