The owner of the Warpool Court Hotel in St Davids has escaped an immediate jail sentence after finally acknowledging he had been wrong to download child pornography.

Peter Trier, aged 69, had been convicted by a jury at Swansea crown court of four offences of making an indecent real photograph of a child during April, 2016 and of possessing 197 indecent real photographs of children.

Trier, of Trewellwell House, Solva, was also convicted of three further offences of making indecent real photographs of children and one of possessing 123 indecent photographs of children.

After the verdicts Judge Keith Thomas warned him that he would go to jail unless suspending the sentence served some purpose.

Trier’s barrister, Chris Clee QC, said at today’s (Friday) sentencing hearing that Trier now acknowledged his wrong doing.

Publicity of his convictions in the Western Telegraph had had a significant effect on him, he added.

The jury had heard how police raided his home on April 19 last year and took away computers and memory sticks.

Experts found child sex images on two computers, including 28 films.

And one revealed that Trier had been searching the internet for “boy love and “nude boys.”

Trier told the court he had been treated for prostate cancer in 2009 which had reduced his ability to have an erection.

He said he had tried Viagra without much success and then his consultant at the Royal Marsden hospital in London had suggested he tried viewing pornography.

In doing so, he claimed, he accidentally downloaded child sex images.

Trier was jailed for 12 months, suspended for two years, and ordered to complete 40 days of rehabilitation activities as directed by the probation service.

He was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order restricting his access to children and to the internet.

Trier must also register with the police as a sex offender for the next 10 years.

Judge Thomas said Trier had been rightly convicted by a jury who had seen through his claims, as had the probation officer who prepared a report on him.

“It is time you grasped this particular nettle. You were seeking those images for your own sexual gratification.”

Judge Thomas said Trier needed to appreciate that the images he viewed were of real children being abused for real.