A deputy headmaster who was caught red-handed as he used the computer network at his special school to download child pornography has been spared a jail sentence.

Simon Warner, 38, who is married with a young daughter, was given a six-month sentence suspended for two years after he admitted 11 charges of making indecent images of children.

Gloucester Crown Court heard that the IT manager at Cotswold Chine School near Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, uncovered Warner's depraved activities as he worked on the school website.

Prosecutor Jenny Tallentire said that on October 24 last year the manager was configuring new pages on the website and was astonished to see that someone was accessing child abuse images via the school network.

An image the manager saw on the screen was of a child of about 10 and further images appeared as he watched. It was clear to the manager, said the prosecutor, that the school network was being accessed remotely via the internet.

"Mr Warner was sitting at home using a computer which had been provided to his wife, who is also a teacher at the school," said Ms Tallentire.

"The manager instructed staff not to break the link between the defendant's home and the system and he called the police."

Police went to Warner's house in Church Lane, Hardwicke. He answered the door and was arrested. Police searched and found the computer still running with an image of an adult and child on it. "During the search his wife returned home with their young daughter," said Ms Tallentire.

"She was horrified and stunned by the suggestion that her husband could be involved in this type of behaviour and she became extremely upset."

Analysis of all the computers, hard-drives and memory sticks seized from Warner's home revealed 3,000 images of children but only 454 could definitely be categorised as illegal.

Of those 409 were the least serious level-one category, 24 were level-two, 12 were level-three and nine were level-four. There were none at the most serious level-5.

Warner was paying $26 (£12.99) a month for access to one website and told police he had developed a morbid obsession with child porn but did not get sexual gratification from it.

Robert Duvall, defending, said Warner was in many ways a very troubled man suffering from clinical depression.

After the discovery of his offences his wife had left him, taking their daughter, for four months but had since returned although her trust in him had suffered, Mr Duval said.

Mr Duvall argued that Warner did not need to be locked up for the protection of society because he was not likely to offend again.

"He is someone who may not yet fully recognise the problems that he has and therefore someone who would probably benefit greatly from proper supervised and sophisticated lengthy treatment," said Mr Duvall.

Warner had been doing an extremely difficult job at a school which works with pupils who have serious emotional and behavioural difficulties, he said.

He had often been assaulted by pupils and had worked up to 14 hours a day in a challenging post which required enormous patience.

Warner had been devastated when he was passed over for promotion to headmaster and the job was given to someone junior to him with less experience.

"He felt trapped in his job because of his financial commitments and he started accessing pornography. The vast majority of it was adult," said Mr Duvall.

Judge Mark Horton told Warner: "Tragedy is too small a word to use to describe your appearance before this court for offences of such moral and sexual gravity.

"For the deputy headmaster of a school with vulnerable young children whose lives and personalities have been blighted and damaged by sad circumstances and probably ill treatment by adults to find himself here for these offences is incredible."

He gave him a six-month sentence suspended for two years and ordered him to undertake work to promote personal behaviour change as well as to attend the a sex offender treatment programme.