A SALE man who admitted possessing child porn, extreme pornography and cocaine has been sentenced.

Former teacher Brian Porritt, 58, who used to live on Britannia Road, was given a three year community order, ordered to attend a sex offenders’ treatment programme, ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for five years and given an indefinite Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court today.

Porritt, who used to teach at Burnage High School, had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to four counts of possessing an indecent image of a child, possessing extreme pornographic images and possession of cocaine.

He was caught by police investigating convicted paedophile Gareth Hulme, who was at the centre of an international paedophile network.

Hulme was given an indeterminate sentence for public protection (IPP) in June for 24 offences, which included the rape of a 10-year-old boy and sexual activity with a 15-year-old boy.

Officers discovered internet chat logs between Hulme and Porritt where they talked about sex with children.

They searched Porritt’s Sale home and found cocaine, DVDs of an extreme pornographic nature and 242 indecent images of children on his computer.

Porritt said during interview that he had never knowingly downloaded child pornography.

Detective Constable Jordan McGowan, from Greater Manchester Police's Operation Impact team, said: "Porritt might not have physically harmed anyone himself but he was perpetuating the suffering of victims of sexual abuse by indulging others who did and possessing material distributed by such offenders.

"Greater Manchester Police will act on any information, no matter how difficult it is to trace someone, because every child in those images is a victim of a terrible crime and all those involved deserve to be brought before the courts."