An MP had his phone cut off after being the innocent victim of a £1,200 internet porn sting.

Tim Loughton, who represents East Worthing and Shoreham, has called for tough new penalties to protect computer users.

Mr Loughton was sent a "spam" email, which he deleted without reading, to his Houses of Parliament address.

During the next 42 hours, his computer automatically made 35 calls to a premium rate phone line from his constituency address, where he had been working from home.

The calls, which are believed to have been made to a pornography site based in eastern Europe, cost as much as £38 each.

Tory MP Mr Loughton only discovered what had happened a few days later when his wife rang him in London to say the phone had been cut off.

Operator Telecom Plus automatically blocked the line because it had made such a large number of premium rate calls.

Mr Loughton contacted the Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards for Telephone Information Services (ICSTIS) and action was taken against the company responsible, Tay Bose.

Tay Bose, which had a registered address in London, was fined £8,000 and banned from access to premium rate services for two years. But Telecom Plus refused to refund Mr Loughton and he was forced to pay the £1,200 bill in full.

Mr Loughton now wants criminal penalties to be introduced against firms who target computer users in this way.

He told The Argus: "My computer was invaded and its settings were altered to dial a premium rate phone line. I was then charged for the privilege, even though I never accessed the web site. That is a criminal activity and should be treated as such."

Mr Loughton revealed details of the incident in a House of Commons debate on extreme pornography and the internet yesterday.

The Argus's support for the campaign to ban web sites showing violent porn was praised by Brighton Pavilion MP David Lepper. More than 1,300 readers have supported the appeal launched following the murder of Brighton teacher Jane Longhurst, strangled by musician Graham Coutts, who was obsessed with depraved sex sites.