The Northern Echo can reveal that an Army cadet chief who offered to supply a child for sex on the Internet has been jailed for 10 years.

Major Andrew Shaw, executive officer of the Cleveland Army Cadet Force, plotted the rape with paedophile postman Alan Lawson who was jailed for eight years.

They were sentenced at Teesside Crown Court on the 18th of February but the Recorder of Middlesbrough Judge Peter Fox QC banned all reporting of the case.

However, following a landmark legal challenge by The Northern Echo the case can now be reported.

Shaw, of The Old Courthouse in Barnard Castle, used the name of a Sixties pop star Tony Orlando in e-mails to Lawson, who was a member of the Danish Paedophile Association.

Pictures sent by Shaw were found on bachelor Lawson's bedroom computer at his Isle of Wight home.

Shaw's computer at his historic home included an E-mail from Lawson boasting about having sex with a 13-year-old girl on Malta.

Shaw was arrested in an early morning raid by civilian and MoD police. * Read the full story in tomorrow's Northern Echo