A businessman has been spared jail for a second time in nine months for downloading child porn because he has a brain tumour.
Former company director, Stephen Pantlin, 49, downloaded hundreds of images of abused children on to his computers only months after being convicted of similar offences.
The 49-year-old defendant had previously been ordered to adhere to strict conditions, including having special monitoring software on his computer.
However, just a couple of months after his last conviction, he managed to get two new computers and a hard drive, so he could download hundreds of illegal images.
Today he walked free from court after the judge again accepted that the tumour and operations to reduce its size had affected his judgment.
Judge Jack Bayliss, sitting at Guildford Crown Court, sentenced Pantlin to an 18-month custodial sentence, suspended for two years.
He was also told he will have to serve 240 hours unpaid community work, and restart a two-year community order to go on a paedophile rehabilitation program.
Judge Bayliss said: 'The real evil of your substantive offences is the damage that’s done to children around the world. It’s horrendous.
'There’s only one thing stopping me from sending you straight to prison. That is the evidence of the removal of your fronto-temporal lobe and the effect that has had on you.
'I’m satisfied that has affected your breach of the sexual offence prevention order and your reoffending.'
Charlene Sumnall, defending, said Pantlin had no prior convictions before he had contracted the tumour last year, which led to surgeons removing his fronto-temporal lobe.
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She said: 'It’s a slow-growing tumour that he’s got. The position of that tumour affects his judgement and impulse control, which is clearly a factor in his offending.
'This gentleman, who is now 49 years of age, had not been in trouble with the courts at all until that tumour. That must be a contributing factor.
'This offence has gone hand in hand with that tumour.'
Prosecutor Lee Harris said police raided Pantlin's home after it emerged he had not told his estranged wife he was on the sexual offences register. The information came out at a family court hearing in January this year.
A judge a Guildford Crown Court ordered Pantlin to undertake 240 hours of community service and to go on a community rehabilitation programme
Police officers found a new Sony Vaio laptop and iMac Apple computer which did not have police monitoring software installed on them as per the conditions of his original sentence.
There was also an external hard-drive, on which forensic IT specialists found 458 indecent pictures of young children.
The former company director, who is being divorced by his wife, was already serving a three-year community order imposed for similar offences last September.
The judge also heard Pantlin violated a restraining order by sending his wife a Valentine’s Day card last February, with the message: 'This may be the last time I get to send you a "wife" card.'
Ms Sumnall said that he had lost his job as a result of the offences and his marriage was over.
'This is a man at his lowest ebb. He came to court today with his bag packed to go to prison.'
She said her client had contemplated taking his life and had even researched suicide sites on the internet.
Ms Sumnall said that Pantlin’s grown-up daughter was in court to support him.
'He asks for one last chance,' she added.
She said that Pantlin was working well with the Thames Valley programme to combat sex offending - and the organisers were keen for him to keep working on the project to rehabilitate him.
Pantlin, of Guildford, admitted eight new counts of possessing indecent photographs of children, four counts of breaching a sexual offences prevention order, and one count of breaching a restraining order.