It is difficult to feel anything but revulsion for people who buy and look at child pornography.

For in doing so they are as guilty of abusing those children as the people who made the films or pictures.

For they provide a lucrative market for the individuals who make and sell such appalling images.

David Kearley is one such person. A man who during the day was working to help youngsters stricken by cancer.

How tragic and ironic that by night he spent his time downloading pictures of children being sexually abused.

He was a real life Jekyll and Hyde and someone who is now paying the price. His career and his reputation are now in ruins and he is today behind bars.

What he has done will probably haunt him forever.

Maybe the treatment he is undergoing will help him overcome this awful obsession. Then at least there will be one less person preying on these youngsters.

But, of course, nothing can undo the damage that has been done to them. For every child who is abused for the gratification of a pervert is harmed for life.

Nothing can give them back their innocence and nothing can put right the damage suffered.

Every child looks to grown-ups for assurance and protection and every adult has a moral responsibility to do their best to meet those needs.

Who knows how many youngsters suffered to provide Kearley with his vile collection of child pornography?

Even one would have been too many. But of course there were probably many, many more.

Kearley should reflect on that when he is in prison and when he has been released.