A FORMER teacher who led a worldwide campaign to legalise paedophilia from his County Durham home has been jailed.

Thomas O'Carroll, 61, was the founder of the now defunct Paeodophile Information Exchange and was caught after an undercover police officer infiltrated the group.

He was arrested at his home in Shildon, County Durham, in January, and charged alongside his co-defendant 67-year-old Michael Studdert, a former priest from Surrey.

Studdert, admitted 20 counts of making indecent pictures of a child, one of distributing indecent images of a child and one of simple possession of such an image of a child between January 12, 2001 and January 26 this year.

O'Carroll, formerly of Leam Street, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, has admitted three counts of distributing indecent photographs of children between January 1, 1994 and July 4 last year.

Police investigating the pair found an Aladdin's Cave of child porn at Studdert's country mansion in Hindead.

Studdert had amassed the library containing at least 100,000 images in all types of media at his luxury home set in 17 acres of land.

Peter Zinner, prosecuting, had called for indeterminate sentences 'for public protection' bearing in mind the amount of items found and their criminal records.

But to Studdert's apparent relief Judge Roger Chapple sentenced him to four years imprisonment and gave O'Carroll two-and-a-half years jail.