A former Mid Wales police sergeant whose estranged fiancee reported him to colleagues after discovering he used illicit internet child porn sites has been spared a jail sentence.

Mark Bretherick, 33, who admitted possessing child pornography on his personal computer, was given a three-year supervision order by Judge Christopher Morton.

The judge decided the former Dyfed Powys policeman was not a danger to the public.

Bretherick, of Waterloo Fields, Welshpool, was also put on the sex offenders’ register for five years and will have to complete a sex offenders’ programme.

The former officer, who was based in Newtown, admitted a charge of possessing an indecent image of a child last month but escaped prosecution for 17 other identical charges on a technicality, which the court ordered should all remain on file.

It came after the prosecution acknowledged the impossibility of proving the images were downloaded after a change in the law.

Until January 11 2001, the possession of such indecent images of children were only dealt with by magistrates courts but after that date the change meant that they were dealt with only in crown courts.

Had they been downloaded before the change in the law it would have been necessary to start a prosecution within six months.

Jim Davis, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court, yesterday the images were found on two laptops in Bretherick’s possession.

One of the laptops held just one image, which it could be clearly proved had been downloaded after the law change.

Mr Davis said the police were alerted to Bretherick’s activities by his estranged fiancee Jane Griffith, who discovered “hand written documents” listing illicit websites, in his handwriting as she packed up her things in December 2005 after the couple decided to separate.

Michael Mather-Lees, for Bretherick, said his client had voluntarily resigned from his job and felt only “deep deep shame.”

“He has lost his good character forever in a fashion that is irredeemable. The stigma of this will remain with him. He is very much a shadow of the former Mark Bretherick.”

By Lisa Rowley