England cricket coach jailed over child porn videos

A New Zealand-born fitness coach with the England cricket team was jailed in Britain overnight for six months for downloading "disgusting" child porn movies.

Marques Church, 31, who has worked with star players including Michael Vaughan and Kevin Pietersen, was arrested after running up a £23,000 ($62,670) on his laptop in just a month, Britain's Daily Mail reported .

The internet account was paid for by the England and Wales Cricket Board, which launched an urgent inquiry into the huge bill.

Horrified officials found 13 indecent video clips involving children as young as four in a folder on the machine marked "incomplete".

Leicester Crown Court was told that 10 of the films were categorised as Level Four and one at Level Five, the most serious category.

Police were called and Church, who specialised in strength and conditioning training, was arrested at his home in Loughborough, Leics.

He said he had been through a relationship breakdown and was a "low point" in his life, and claimed he had deleted the images after looking at them.

He began working with the England cricket team in April last year but resigned when the offences came to light in June.

Jenny Carter-Manning, defending, said Church had committed the offences during a 'truly awful time' in this life. His fiance of eight years had left him, his father's mutiple sclerosis worsened and a grandparent died.

He had suffered what could only be described as a "total breakdown" she claimed.

Church, who admitted five counts of making indecent images of children, claimed he had no sexual interest in children and intended to return to New Zealand as soon as possible.

Passing sentence Judge Michael Pert, QC, told him: "It should be made clear these are video films you deliberately obtained of young girls involved in sexual activity with adult men.

"That sort of material is wholly unacceptable and only brought about by the exploitation of young children in countries where there is little money.

"You have fuelled that trade. You would not be the first person with a sexual interest in young children to deny it.

"We have to take these matters seriously - these are disgusting offences.'

The court was told Church had been a rugby player in his native country before coming to live in Britain several years ago.

He accompanied the England cricketers on their tour of New Zealand for the first Test earlier this year and travelled with the A team to India last year.