A DISGRACED criminal law lecturer at the University of East Anglia has been jailed for 15 months for downloading more than 1,000 indecent photographs of children.

Sentencing Julian Myerscough at Ipswich Crown Court, Judge John Devaux said material found on computer equipment at his Lowestoft home showed he had a long standing interest in indecent images of children.

He said an aggravating feature of the case was that many of the images depicted children under the age of 12 and said he was sentencing Myerscough on the basis that he was in possession of more than 1,200 indecent photographs and movies.

Myerscough, 48, of Alexandra Road, Lowestoft, denied 16 offences of making indecent images of children between 1999 and June 17 last year and four offences of possessing indecent images of children. After a trial lasting several weeks last month a jury convicted Myerscough of three offences of downloading indecent images of children and two offences of possessing a total of 1,335 indecent images of children.

In addition to jailing Myerscough for 15 months Judge Devaux ordered him to sign on the Sex Offenders' Register for ten years and made him the subject of a ten year Sexual Offences Prevention Order. He also ordered him to pay �3,000 prosecution costs.

Myerscough, who disposed with the services of his legal team during the trial and represented himself, told the court he faced a tribunal in relation to his employment, from which he was currently suspended, in January and would almost certainly lose his job.

He said that in relation to the two offences of possessing indecent images of which he had been convicted it was not possible to say on what basis the jury had found him guilty in terms of the quantity of images.

Evidence presented during the trial included a timeline which showed that within three minutes of a pornographic movie being created on Myerscough's computer, a BBC sports web page featuring Twenty20 cricket was viewed followed by files featuring classical music and narrow gauge railways.

David Wilson, prosecuting, said these subjects reflected Myerscough's interests and the timeline was a 'smoking gun' linking him with the offences.

A UEA spokesman said: 'It is not our practice to comment in detail on individual cases, but I can confirm that the university is implementing appropriate internal procedures following the outcome of this case.'