A former primary school teaching assistant who lives near Helston had an indecent image of a child on his computer screen when police raided his home.

This was revealed at a Truro Crown Court hearing to sentence 22-year-old Michael John Harvey, who lives just outside the town at Trevenen Bal, near Trewennack.

Ordering Harvey to spend three years on a sex offender treatment programme after he admitted downloading 290 images of child pornography, judge Paul Darlow said Harvey showed “no empathy” for the children and babies who appeared in the photographs.

Harvey had earlier pleaded guilty to 15 specimen charges of making indecent images of children, which covered all five categories of the scale used to measure the severity of the sexual abuse.

At Monday’s court hearing, at which Harvey was also ordered to sign the sex offender register and pay £500 costs, judge Paul Darlow heard police had raided Harvey’s home on September 15 last year, after receiving a tip off.

Prosecutor Philip Lee said officers found Harvey with an indecent image on his computer screen and he had been arrested.

During the course of the first interview Harvey had admitted he had been accessing child porn websites for some time, adding that he had a sexual interested in boys and girls.

Harvey had added that his interested was in children aged 14 and upwards, although Mr Lee said there had been a “significant number” of much younger children in the images found.

Christopher Spencer, defending, said Harvey had no previous convictions and since losing his job had been living off his parents because he did not want to claim benefits.

Speaking after the hearing, Detective Sergeant Steve Rome, of the Child Exploitation Unit, said the judge had sent a message to people with an interest in children and used the internet to find child pornography, which was: “Get help or get caught.”

A Cornwall Council spokesman has been quoted as saying Harvey tendered his resignation almost immediately after the allegations came to light and that he left the school’s employment on September 17 last year.