A FORMER parish councillor has been given a suspended jail sentence after a group of paedophile hunters caught him distributing child abuse images on an internet chat room.

Stephen Evans got involved in late night conversations on Kik after becoming depressed and isolated by the loss of his job at the Exeter based airline Flybe.

He was sent images of children aged five to 11 being abused and passed them on to other members of the chat group, unaware it had been infiltrated by paedophile hunters.

They passed on his details to the police who raided his former home in South Devon. He had 21 still images on his iPhone of which only one showed very serious abuse.

Evans, aged 52, who has now moved to Wales, admitted distributing and downloading indecent images and was jailed for 18 months, suspended for two years by Mrs Justice Cutts at Exeter Crown Court.

He was ordered to undertake a sex offender’s treatment course during 40 days of rehabilitation activities and to pay £200 costs.

He was made subject of a 10 year sexual harm prevention order which enables police to monitor his online activity and put on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.

Mr Nigel Hall, prosecuting, said police were alerted by a paedophile hunting group and raided Evans’s home on March 15 last year. They found the images on his iPhone and he admitted sharing some with other members of a Kik chat group.

Miss Mary McCarthy, defending, said Evans got involved in the activity over just two weeks and at a time when he had just lost his job at Flybe and was suffering from insomnia.

She said his arrest led to the end of his relationship and to estrangement from his grown-up children and that he has sought help from the Stop it Now website.

He has previously done good work for the community as a parish councillor. 

She said: ‘He comes across as being horrified with the communication he was engaging with and he is as remorseful as it is possible to be.’