Embarrassed council officials recalled 50,000 tourist brochures that feature the photograph of a convicted paedophile promoting a children's rail attraction.

The booklets contain a picture of David Harper dressed as the Fat Controller next to a Thomas the Tank Engine theme ride.

Eighteen-stone Harper, 66, was jailed for eight years in 2007 after sexually abusing two boys of 10 and 12 and hoarding 25,000 child porn images on his computer.

One of Harper's victims was abused after meeting the paedophile at the Dean Forest Railway in Lydney in the Forest of Dean, which holds Thomas the Tank events every year.

Yet the image of Harper posing at the events was one of several passed on to be used in the 2009 Forest of Dean visitor guide to promote the attraction.

More than 50,000 copies of the glossy magazine were published, at a cost of £25,000, to be sent to tourist offices across the UK.

Forest of Dean District Council initially refused to recall the brochures but now says it will try to destroy them all.

More than 6,500 that had already been sent out will be recalled and 43,500 awaiting distribution will be pulped.

A council spokesman said: ''After a specially arranged meeting, the cabinet agreed it would make sense to recall as many as possible. We were able to get 43,500 back.

"We were worried that should we have to recall them, the guides would not be seen by the public and would be detrimental to next year's figures.

"It now becomes more financially viable as we are able to recall them and issue a replacement."

Harper was exposed as a paedophile in 2007 when he took his computer to a shop in Gloucester to be repaired and staff found 25,000 child porn images, including pictures of Harper sexually abusing two boys of 10 and 12 alongside footage of children being tortured and forced to take part in sickening sex acts.

Harper was jailed for eight years after admitting gross indecency with each of the two boys, 11 offences of making indecent images of children and one of distributing an indecent image at Gloucester Crown Court in November 2007.