Child porn vicar turned in by his wife

The Rev James Morrish's wife Rosemary told police after discovering a picture of a naked child on her husband's computer at their home in the rectory at Kingstone, Herefordshire.

But Mrs Morrish is standing by her 41-year-old husband and attended court to hear his guilty pleas.

The vicar had trawled the internet to locate the vile images during a 45-minute session in the early hours on just one night, said prosecutor Tariq Shakoor.

Worcester Crown Court heard that 54 of the images were of sex between adults and children.

Father-of-two Morrish pleaded guilty to 11 counts of making indecent photographs of children on October 25, 2005.

His plea came on the day he was due to face trial after his barrister Samantha Powis asked the judge for an indication of sentence.

Judge Alistair McCreath told Morrish the "worst case scenario" would be a suspended prison term of 12 months and a possible ban on working with children.

He said the images were free material, the defendant had no previous convictions and there was no suggestion of distribution.

The judge added: "A conviction is difficult for anyone, but for a clergyman it's a significant, severe punishment by reason of his public humiliation and loss of his office."

The case was adjourned for a pre-sentence report and Morrish was granted bail.

Curly-headed Morrish, in charge of five rural parishes in Herefordshire, went under the user name "James" and trawled sites such as Extreme Child and Posted Lolita Photos.

Morrish was arrested in November 2005 and insisted he had no idea how the indecent images came to be on his computer.

He later confessed he had searched the internet to look at porn sites and had expressed a preference for girls aged between 16 and 18.

Morrish claimed he accidentally accessed child porn, had flicked through them, then closed them down.

He told police: "I suppose it's purely a morbid curiosity. I just thought I don't believe this is so easy to access. I felt terrible. I quite scared myself at some of the things that came up.

Morrish maintained he had no interest in child porn but was only interested in "legal teens upwards".

In one police interview he confessed to entering a website which contained stories about incest child porn and child abuse by strangers. He claimed he did not read them.

Annie Holden, director of communications for the Hereford diocese, confirmed that Morrish, who has been suspended for 20 months, would now be sacked.

She added: "We are extremely upset that a vicar in the Church of England has behaved in this way. It is not the standard that we expect from our clergy.

"This is not a victimless crime. We need to remember the children in these appalling photographs and we are very, very upset about it."

On the advice of his barrister, Morrish declined to comment afterwards. He will be sentenced at a date to be fixed when the probation service has decided whether he should attend a sex offenders' course.