A former district councillor has been cleared of all charges of downloading pornographic images of children from the Internet.

Tim Horton

Tim Horton walked free from Oxford Crown Court on November 5 after a jury found him not guilty of 36 counts of making indecent photographs of children.

It took the jury just under four hours to reach unanimous verdicts on all charges following a nine-day trial.

As members of the jury left the court, Mr Horton mouthed at them "thank-you very much".

Outside, the former South Oxfordshire District Council chairman described how the case had put a complete stop on his life, and repeated what he had maintained throughout his trial - his "complete abhorrence of crimes against children."

Mr Horton, 57, of The Goggs, Watlington, resigned from the district council and Watlington Parish Council in the summer of 2002. He had also served on Oxfordshire County Council for four years.

After the verdicts he said: "I have no intention to become involved in community life as I knew it for 15 years. I gave that time to Watlington, which I love, south Oxfordshire and the county.

"It was a joy, I made many friends and I did not want it ended. I feel I achieved some breakthroughs and I hope my contribution will be remembered.

"The last two years will be easier matters to deal with if that is the case."

Mr Horton, who is married with a son, was accused of downloading 619 indecent images of children over a 10-month period, using a district council laptop and telephone line, as well as his home desktop computer.

The prosecution claimed Mr Horton downloaded the images from sites with names such as "child rape" and "spanking schoolgirls".

Giving evidence he admitted using both computers to visit adult sex sites.

But he always denied searching the Internet for child porn. He told the court he had never seen an indecent image of a child on either his laptop or home computer.

Defence witness Dr Daryl Hamilton-Wallis, a digital forensic expert, told the jury this was possible, and that the images could have appeared on the computer screens without any involvement by Mr Horton.

Dr Hamilton-Wallis said the images might have been "hidden" off-screen or behind automatic pop-up windows.

He added that both computers had been "rife" with infections.