A NORTH-EAST businessman whose life "disintegrated" because of his addiction to child pornography today had his jail term for downloading images from the internet, more than halved.

Terence Anthony Hardy, 57, was jailed for two years at Teesside Crown Court after pleading guilty to possessing downloaded indecent photos of children.

After the offences were discovered Hardy's wife of 31 years left him and he had to move from the North-East, where he had established a "respectable" business.

London's Criminal Appeal Court concluded his sentence was too long and slashed it to nine months.

Mr Justice Hughes, sitting with Lord Justice Clarke and Mrs Justice Hobbs, said the original sentence was too tough.

In October 2004, Hardy, of Brooklyn House, Abergavenny, Gwent, lent a laptop computer to a business colleague, who later discovered on it images of child pornography.

"It transpired (Hardy) had been in the habit of downloading firstly adult pornography, latterly child pornography, from the internet," Mr Justice Hughes said.

He had done this on his home domestic computer, but some images inadvertently got onto his laptop.

His computers revealed 162 still images and 52 video clips - 21 being in level four, 103 in level three and the remainder being in the two least serious categories.

The judge said Hardy was entirely frank in his police interview, admitting to being interested in such pornography.

"Indeed, he called it an addiction," Mr Justice Hughes said.

"It began with adult pornography and then, as his appetite became more jaded, branched out into illegal child pornography." He noted Hardy had not shown the material to others and had no previous convictions.

Hardy said his lifestyle had "disintegrated" since the offences had been discovered.