A priest and former private school governor has received a suspended jail sentence after admitting making hundreds of indecent images of children.

Father Timothy Gardner, 42, pictured, was given an eight-month prison sentence suspended for two years at Southwark Crown Court yesterday.

He also received a five-year sexual offences prevention order and will be on the sex offender register for ten years. He is a former governor of Rye St Antony, the Catholic independent school for girls, in Pullen’s Lane, Oxford.

Gardner, from Potters Court, Sutton, had pleaded guilty on March 3 to 10 counts of making indecent images and one count of possession of prohibited images of children at an address in Camden. Over 5,000 images were downloaded on his computer.