A man walked free from court after becoming one of the first people in the country to be prosecuted under new laws that ban the possession of extreme pornographic images.

St Helens Magistrates’ Court heard how the obscene photographs - depicting women and a number of animals - came to light after the 20-year-old was snitched up by computer repairers.

An engineer spotted the pictures [are they instructed to do a scan of images?] and suspecting them to be unlawful reported it to his line manager, who in turn snitched to the police.

The 14 images were claimed to be grossly offensive and disgusting .

District Judge Ian Lomax said the offender had “low social skills”, and believed he had merely viewed the images out of curiosity.

Judge Lomax, who had been shown the images involved in the prosecution, explained: This is new legislation and my inclination is for it to go before crown court. However no fee was paid, there was no file sharing and no processing. The images were obscene and curiosity seems to be the driving force behind you. Your computer skills are good and you stay home a lot. Computers are a substitute for socialising and social skills. But nothing will be gained by sending you into custody, because you wouldn’t survive because you would be vulnerable. Support and assistance is needed.

He was given an 18-month supervision order and 24 hours at an attendance centre, where his offending behaviour will be addressed. He must also pay costs of £65, which will be deducted from his benefits.

Judge Lomax said he would not have to sign the Sex Offenders Register, concluding: Hopefully supervision will make you realise that it is possible that by looking at such images, whether it is out of curiosity, can result in a criminal conviction.

According to sources within law enforcement, there have been two or three prosecutions on their patch under the new Dangerous Pictures legislation. In each case, the crime targeted is that of Chinese men fogging very obviously pirated DVDs. There will be several copies of the latest blockbuster releases with very bad covers, and some pornography, always including some bestiality DVDs.

According to our source, prosecutions always tended to be under counterfeiting and trademark laws. A charge under the Obscene Publications Act (OPA) has also been possible. However, the police have now taken to adding a charge under extreme porn legislation for the bestiality DVDs. This pattern has happened at least twice and probably more.

If true, this suggests critics were right to challenge claims that it was no more than the Obscene Publications Act for the internet age. In the cases described, it would have been open to the police and prosecuting authorities to charge individuals under the Obscene Publications Act.

If there was – as has been argued – no difference between obscenity as defined in the extreme porn law and the OPA version of obscenity, then the OPA would be the more appropriate legislation to apply. The material in question was obscene: those caught by the police would have been guilty of seeking to distribute it – not mere possession. It looks as though the new law is more easily used than the old.