A PROBATION Service expert who distributed child pornography while setting up a £10m Home Office database of sex offenders has been sentenced to 14 months in prison.

Vincent Barron, of Kirk Rise, Frosterley, County Durham, sent ten pornographic images of children to a Scottish man he met in an internet chatroom.

Barron, 49, pleaded guilty to the offences and was sentenced at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court in Scotland this morning.

After his prison sentence Barron will spend 12 months on licence and has been placed on the Sex Offenders register for ten years.

Twice-married Barron pleaded guilty in December last year to distributing indecent pictures of children aged between five and 12, between May and August 2005.

At the time, he was earning £45,000 a year as an assistant chief probation officer seconded to the Home Office to establish the Violent and Sex Offender Register (ViSOR).

The database tells police forces how many registered sex offenders and dangerous criminals live in their area and what crimes they have committed.

Barron was arrested after officers from Fife Constabulary searched the computer of a local man who was being investigated in a separate case.

Police found that ten indecent images of children on the Fife man's PC had been sent from Barron during online conversations.

During a police interview, Barron admitted he had used internet chatrooms to exchange pornographic photographs of children.

He said his curiosity had been aroused after hearing through his job how easy it was to find pornography online, adding he felt "so guilty and so ashamed".

A spokesman for Northumbria Probation Board said at the time: "As a consequence of police investigations, an employee of Northumbria Probation Board seconded to the National Offender Management Service was dismissed.

"We are unable to make any further comment at this time."