Judge refuses to jail man for downloading child porn

A judge in Britain provoked outrage for sparing a man who downloaded hundreds of child pornography pictures of a jail term, stating that such a punishment might only "make him worse"

Christopher Arno, 21, faced up to 18 months in prison after downloading over 800 images of child abuse. Among them were hundreds of photographs graded as the most serious, including images of rape, sadism and torture, the Daily Mail reported.

Judge Alistair McCreath, however, allowed the man to walk free, saying mixing with other perverts could make him a danger to the public.

"Right-thinking people are revolted at people looking at this material. Understandably they think people looking at it should go to prison," he said, adding "The difficulty is that the prison sentence I could pass on you would be really short and you would no doubt come out worse than when you went in."

The judge's comments evoked a furious backlash from child campaigners who said more severe sentences would deter offenders and reassure victims.