A COURT heard today how a pervert was caught using a computer in Birkenhead library to look at child porn and use seedy chat room sites.

Suspicious staff were able to check what Stephen Palmer, who had chosen the computer furthest from the staff desk, was up to and were shocked at what they found.

They could see on their monitor that he was looking at sites such as 'European boys', which included boys as young as seven, and was also using chat rooms.

Police arrived at the library that afternoon, December 19 last year, and he was arrested and the USB stick he was using to download images on was seized, said Claire Jones, prosecuting.

Officers went to the New Ferry home of Palmer, who was banned from having a computer and internet access following previous similar offences, and did not find one.

But when he admitted he had one hidden behind a grille above the back door they returned and seized the banned equipment.

When the USB stick and computer were analysed a total of 21 images in the least serious category of such images were discovered.

He admitted going to use the library's computers as he was banned from using such equipment at home.

He also admitted getting sexual gratification from looking at the images and led a lonely isolated life.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that 60-year-old Palmer was jailed for 12 months in January this year for breaching the SOPO by that behaviour but was only now appearing for sentence for making and possessing the images as the equipment had not been forensically analysed at the time of the January hearing.

Judge Robert Trevor-Jones sentenced him to ten months imprisonment suspended for two years with a 20-day rehabilitation activity requirement and a six month curfew with an electronic tag between 7pm-7 am.

A Sexual Harm Prevention Order was imposed for life and he was also ordered to sign on the Sexual Offenders Register indefinitely.

The judge said it was "alarming" that he had continued his depraved behaviour "simply out of boredom."

But he said he took into account that he has now been accepted onto an internet sex offenders course and had already been jailed for breaching the SOPO by committing the offences.

Palmer, of New Ferry Road, had pleaded guilty to making and possessing indecent images of children.

The court heard that Palmer was jailed in 2010 for downloading and distributing indecent images and he repeatedly breached the Sexual Offences Prevention Order made for those offences in 2013.

David Polglase, defending, said that Palmer had never approached or abused children but went on chat room sites and looked at images.

He had acted out of boredom and loneliness.