A former teacher blamed the BBC when he was caught with thousands of pornographic images of children on his home computer.

Peter Watts, 37, from Upper Dicker, near Eastbourne, was featured in a 2002 documentary on the rehabilitation of paedophiles after being convicted of an offence a year earlier.

He took his battle to prevent BBC2's The Hunt For Britain's Paedophiles from being screened to the High Court but lost.

Yesterday at Lewes Crown Court, where Watts admitted 35 counts of making indecent images of children, his barrister said the documentary had made him "give up the struggle" against his addiction.

Andrew Selby, defending, said: "Having spent 12 months in a clinic, he had made good progress for his reintegration into society. He does not dispute the content of the documentary but it certainly made him feel the 12 months put into changing himself had been put to waste."

Watts was tracked down through Sussex Police intelligence work. A total of 3,541 images of children were discovered, some on his computer's hard drive and others on compact discs. He was arrested in March.

Christine Laing, prosecuting, said Watts' parents had bought him the computer after he completed a rehabilitation course for seven earlier offences of distributing, making and possessing indecent images.

She said: "It was about this time he started visiting paedophile web sites and downloading indecent images of children. He said it was for his own sexual gratification."

Ms Laing said Watts, of Camberlot Road, had been a teacher and a cricket coach for young men.

A BBC spokesman said: "The series was in the public interest. It responsibly encouraged debate of the issue of paedo-philia and its policing and provided viewers with the information they needed to make up their own minds on the subject."

Watts was jailed for two-and-a-half years for each of the 35 offences of making indecent images of children. He was also sentenced to four years for eight offences of distributing indecent images and four-and-a-half years for distributing the picture made by his friend. All the jail terms were to be served concurrently, totalling a four-and-a-half year sentence.

Watts was banned from owning or using any computer equipment connected to the internet for ten years and banned from working with children for life.