A 30-year-old cub scout master from Ashton in Greater Manchester has been placed on the sex offenders' register.

Alan O'Meara, of Waddicor Avenue, was registered after admitting possessing an indecent image of a child.

Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester heard he received two videos of children performing sex acts with adults after logging on to a chat site.

After watching and then deleting the videos, he confessed to police. He was given a conditional discharge.

The court was told that O'Meara, using a female persona, routinely logged on to a chat site which allows people to swap pornographic images.

Pseudonym used

Registering under the name "Princess Darling", he began talking to an individual who asked him if he wanted to have a private chat using MSN.

The court heard that O'Meara then accepted the other party's offer of receiving pictures of girls younger than those on the website.

He then watched two videos of young children performing sexual acts with adults.

The court was told that afterwards he telephoned police and confessed what he had done.

He told them that he had deleted the two files because he knew that police and other agencies monitored "stuff like that" and that he did not want a slur against his name, especially because he was a cub scout leader.

"Inherent curiosity"

After calling the police, O'Meara attended Ashton police station where he was arrested on suspicion of possessing and making indecent images of children.

In his police interview, the court was told that he said he had thrown up after watching the first video but still watched the second out of "inherent curiosity".

O'Meara said that he had re-contacted the other party asking him to send him more.

He claimed that he did this to assist police in their investigation as he wanted the individual to be dealt with by police.

He then went on to delete both of the videos that had been sent.