A MAN uploaded several indecent pictures of children to complete his online slideshow, a court was told.

Edward Shirley had chosen some photographs to put to a piece of music, which he intended to upload to YouTube.

But discovering he was short of pictures to fill the length of music, he added the indecent pictures to the show.

Shirley, aged 53, of New Street, Worcester, admitted possessing and distributing three indecent images of children between January 31 and May 11, 2009, when he appeared at Worcester Magistrates Court.

Liam Finch, prosecuting, said Shirley had uploaded the level one images – the lowest level – to social networking site YouTube as part of a bigger slideshow which contained about 40 photographs in total.

Shirley initially said the images were not his, and he did not find the images sexually interesting. But in his second interview, he admitted that a number of the images were indecent.

Ruth Edwards, defending, said: “He was not doing this with the intention of distributing indecent images.

“He was looking for images to go in the slideshow and because he clicked on the images, they remained as thumbnails on his computer. He knows the seriousness of these offences.

“This has had a substantial effect on him.”

Deputy district judge David Murray said: “You are a man of previous good character but that holds no weight with these type of offences.

"People often think this is a victimless crime, but it is not.”

Shirley was given a community order with a supervision requirement for 36 months and told to complete a sexual offenders group programme.

He was also made the subject of a sexual offences prevention order and is prohibited from having any unsupervised contact with a child under 16 for five years.