A RETIRED IT manager, who is a swinger in his spare time and “fantasised” about children, has been spared jail after trying to meet young girls for sex.

A total of 250,000 pornographic images were found on 64-year-old Peter Evans’ computer, including explicit pictures of nearly 500 children.

When police raided his home and searched his hard drive they also found logs of MSN messenger chat room conversations where he had tried to befriend eight girls aged between nine and 15.

Rowan Jenkins, prosecuting at Hove Crown Court, said it began as a fantasy with online conversations with adults about incestuous sexual acts with girls.

Then it transpired he was speaking to children in some of the conversations.

Mr Jenkins said: “However distasteful, it is not unlawful.

“It suddenly stops being a fantasy. In 2011 he starts to hand out his genuine mobile number.

“They never met but this was not through a lack of desire or a want of trying.”

He said it took officers many months to look through all the chat room logs to find who was involved, adding: “They have never been able to identify any child or person involved despite names and addresses which materialised in conversations.”

Evans admitted six offences of having indecent images of children and eight of trying to contact under-age girls online for sexual contact.

James Scobie, defending, said for a relatively short period Evans had a sexual interest in children but it “never went beyond the computer”. He said while there was a vast number of images on the computer, most were related to swinging because “that is what he does in his spare time”.

He said of the pictures of children, just over 100 were accessible, meaning they had been stored and not deleted.

The court heard how the investigation against Evans took years.

Mr Scobie said: "This is not a criticism of anybody in this case but they [officers] did take quite a lot of time to investigate his computer."

He said Evans was arrested in May 2013 over the images, but was only re interviewed 16 months later.

He was not charged until June 2015 and then not further charged over the online conversations until April last year.

He described the circumstances of the case as causing a "quandary" for the court because Evans had no previous convictions and had been a "hard working man all his life" and had been looking after his ill wife for many years.

Judge Jeremy Gold said a meeting never took place and it had been a “lengthy and protracted” investigation.

He said Evans, of Bramber Way, Burgess Hill, had made arrangements to commit “potentially extremely serious offences”, adding: “For whatever reason it was never carried through.

“Be under no illusions, if you had you would have been looking at a very long sentence indeed.

“Whatever one may think of your own conduct in your sexual life over the years, it is not illegal.”

With a “degree of hesitation” he handed Evans a two-year sentence, suspended for two years and a string of concurrent sentences for every count on the indictment.

He was ordered to enrol in a sex offenders’ rehabilitation programme with 24 months of supervision, has to complete 200 hours of unpaid work and pay £1,500 in court costs and a victim surcharge.

He was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for ten years and put on the sex offenders register.

His computer will be destroyed.

A further nine offences of trying to contact underage girls online for sexual contact, which he had denied, were ordered to lie on the file.