A teenage child porn distributor has been jailed after police uncovered an Internet business which, it was said, would have been much appreciated by the paedophile community.

Alan James Scott, 19, of Turnberry Drive, Acomb, York, cheated his way into cyber space using stolen credit card details and routing e-mails through a hacked Japanese computer, said Dan Cordey, prosecuting, at Teesside Crown Court.

By the time an investigation prompted by a US health body led detectives to his bedroom the young man had a couple of thousand child porn pictures in data storage and had printed some off to show a mate.

Hundreds of voyeurs had logged into his web site to get pornographic images of pre-teen children from his bedside computer as he sat watching television.

While awaiting sentence for six child porn related offences, he terrified a mother with a young child by threatening to break into their home with a gun, said Mr Cordey. He was actually armed with a 12 cm kitchen knife and had been drinking.

Arrested shortly afterwards he covered the inside of a police vehicle with blood spat out from self-inflicted bites to his inner cheek.

Jailing Scott for two years, Judge David Bryant said: "You deliberately and dishonestly set up an enterprise trading in child pornography.

"It is true that you didn't receive money but merely received more pornography, but you set out to provide a service which was no doubt much appreciated by the paedophile community.

"These offences the public at large quite rightly regard with revulsion and people who have any dealings with child pornography must expect to go to prison.

"The public are entitled to be protected from your offences whether on the ground or in cyber space."

He placed the teenager on the sex offenders' register for ten years.

Scott, now of Ponderosa, Sutton-on-the-Forest, pleaded guilty in November to three offences of making child porn pictures, one of distributing child porn, one of deception by obtaining 250 mb of Web space with false details and a similar charge of attempted deception. He also admitted affray and carrying an offensive weapon in Sutton-on-the-Forest on December 27.

Mr Cordey said Scott used two names and stolen details of credit cards obtained from a man in Canada with a pseudonym of "Death" to buy Web space from a Surrey company.

He called his Web site Toxnet.com But this name was already used by the National Institute of Health in the USA and the institute's inquiries eventually led to the Surrey company contacting the British police.

Scott also claimed to be Yahoo and AOL, well-known Internet companies.

He told police he thought child porn was "sick" and "disgusting". He set up his service to be powerful and important.

The court heard Scott had been on a supervision order or on probation for five years and had been convicted of carrying a Stanley knife with two razor blades on November 12 between his arrest on the child porn offences and the Sutton-on-the-Forest incident.

For Scott, Simon Reevell said he had a history of self-harm and suicide attempts and had started the Internet site in a bid to be wanted, probably for the first time in his life.

He got no sexual gratification from the porn and was not a paedophile.

Scott needed psychiatric help, not prison.

On December 27, he had been drinking because his grandfather had died. He had no idea why he tried to get into the mother's house and smashed the windows. He had never intended a burglary.

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