Catholic priest jailed over child porn photos

A senior Catholic priest who was caught with 18,000 photographs and computer images of children involved in sexually depraved acts was jailed for nine months yesterday.

Father Michael O'Kelly, the former dean of Reading, had pleaded guilty to a single charge of making indecent pseudo-photographs of a child between June 1997 and October 2000.

O'Kelly, 47, who has been receiving treatment at Horton Hospital in Epsom, Surrey, was also sentenced to a six-year supervision order, placed on the sex offenders' register, and banned from working with children again.

Reading Crown Court was told that the images, found on videos, magazines and stored on computer disks, included depictions of bestiality and were "disturbing, degrading and disgusting". The children were aged up to 14, butsome of the images were of babies involved in indecent acts with adults, the court was told.

The priest, a former African missionary who joined the clergy in 1992, was arrested last October following a joint raid at his home in Tilehurst, Reading, by Thames Valley Police and Customs and Excise officers.