A PROMINENT East Yorkshire doctor who downloaded indecent pictures of young girls from an American website today walked free from court.

Dr Paul Anthony Fernando Hewish, 52, formerly of York, received a three-year community rehabilitation order and was told to attend a sex offenders' treatment programme, when he was sentenced at Hull Magistrates Court.

District Judge Frederick Rutherford said Hewish had only escaped a prison sentence because it was his first offence, there was no breach of trust in his actions, and because of his guilty plea to two charges - one of possession of indecent photographs and one of making of indecent photographs.

Humberside Police began a criminal investigation of the GP, who works for the East Riding Primary Care Trust, in March this year, after two photographs were discovered in his desk at Goole Medical Centre.

Craig Sutcliffe, representing Hewish, said: "You can't take more from him than he's already taken from himself. The devastation he brought upon himself by his actions is something he's clearly going to have to live with for a considerable period of time."

Mr Sutcliffe said that Hewish described his actions as "a private problem that he had left behind". He said that the last time images were downloaded was on March 10, 2000.

In sentencing, District Judge Rutherford said that the amount of images was relatively small and the images were not particularly graphic.

But he added: "Remember this, your interest in these images helps to sustain the market and encourage the trade in more vile activities. It may well be said that you deserve custody, but I have to take high regard to the guidelines handed down in higher court."

Hewish, who gave the court an address in Great Yarmouth, was suspended from the Health Centre in Goole after Humberside Police began the investigation.

The Primary Care Trust has set up a help line for former patients of Hewish. Anyone who feels they may be affected by the case should call 01482 670829 using the reference "April".

Hewish was ordered to register as a sex offender for the next five years and must also pay £55 costs.

Updated: 14:33 Tuesday, August 13, 2002