A FORMER radio broadcaster from Herefordshire returned to court after making indecent videos and images of children and narrowly avoided prison.

Judge James Burbridge said he felt Nigel Rousseau Edwards' case was one that did not warrant immediate custody as his latest offending had been committed in 2011 and 2012 with nothing since.

The 69-year-old of Cottington, Ledbury, had previously pleaded guilty to making two category B indecent moving images of children, created in October 2011, and seven category C still images of children and eight category C moving images of children. They were created between October 2011, and February 2012.

Lynette McClement, prosecuting, said police arrested paedophile Edwards in connection with a separate incident, with electronic devices seized.

The prosecutor said: "A computer tower which contained two hard drives was seized.

"They were examined (by a forensic officer). The operating system had Mr Edwards name on it. The category C movies involved children as young as 10."

The prosecutor said in a police interview earlier this year Edwards had denied being responsible and gave police a name of someone he suggested had access to his computer.

"A further report showed that in fact Nigel Edwards' profile was active on that computer at the time that material was accessed, so he was using it," Miss McClement said.

"There was no evidence to suggest a link to any other user."

The court heard that in December 1994 Edwards was convicted of indecent assault on a male under the age of 16, receiving a two-year probation order before, in January 1997, being convicted of indecent assault and two other sexual offences involving boys under 16, for which he was jailed for 54 months.

Edwards was a broadcaster with BBC Hereford and Worcester when the offences for which he was jailed took place in 1992.

A former lay member of the General Synod, Edwards was said to have befriended a teenage victim when they sang in the same choir together before the offending that took place at Edwards' former home in Malvern.

Miss McClement added: "The biggest aggravating feature the crown identify is that he has previous convictions which have not deterred his offending in relation to children."

Mark Sheward, defending Edwards, said: "The offences go back nearly 10 years now. After devices were examined. It is clear there were no searches for images such as these after 2012.

"For the last nine to 10 years he has lost interest, possibly because of his age, in matters of a sexual nature."

Sentencing him, Judge Burbridge said: "There are a modest number (of indecent images and movies), nonetheless each represents serious abuse of a child.

"You well know that at 69 years of age, and because of your antecedence."

Judge Burbridge gave Edwards an eight-month jail sentence, suspended for two years.

He ordered him to carry out 30 days rehabilitation activity days, and to pay costs of £340, and a victim surcharge of £156.

He also ordered Edwards pay the cost of a £2,016 expert report as part of legal aid, the judge explaining: "Anybody who seeks to have an expert report at taxpayers' expense, who in reality knows they committed the crime, will have to pay for it."

Edwards, who already signs the sexual offences register, was also placed under an indefinite sexual harm prevention order that restricts his use of the internet.