A Bush Street man in Collingwood pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 45 days behind bars for possessing over 150 computer graphic images of pre-pubescent female children.

Last Tuesday, a court ordered Andrew Edwards, 42, listed with the sex offender registry for 10 years and that he have restricted access to children except his own in the interval.

An 18-month probation will follow his sentence, as will a five-year weapons ban.

Court heard that on Feb. 12, 2007, the computer giant Yahoo notified the American based Cyber Tip line that they had "caught the ikey address with 163 images to sweetlil@yahoo.com."

Yahoo then contacted the centre for Exploited Chidren (MCED, also U.S.-based), which in turn alerted Canadian authorities.

'Photo Bucket' was another computer vehicle used by the defendant to store images that he could readily access for his own consumption. By June of last year, added Crown Jennifer Armenise, the MCED had viewed and described the images as "child erotica" or what Canadian law calls child pornography.

At this point, an RCMP constable became involved, handing over 153 of the images to the OPP for further investigation.

Some of the images showed nude children.

Defence counsel Mitch Eisen of the Barrie firm Cugelman and Eisen said, while his client has two children - both under the age of 12 - they did not access the files at any time.

"There were also a large number of adult pornography images on the home computer," the lawyer said.

Eisen argued that first offender Edwards "knew this was wrong and was not clear that it was illegal." He went on in an attempt to minimize the exploitative nature of the images, citing child erotica as "a good description" in the case.

However Mr. Justice Roland Harris objected.

"The (Criminal Code) definition of child pornography is quite explicit, including a person under 18 engaged in sexual or anal activity. Are you saying that's child erotica?

"A person thinking of this as erotica would be a pretty sick puppy," he said. Before summing up, Harris digested half a dozen character letters that were filed on Edward's behalf by the defence.

"You are part of an epidemic problem, the role the possessor plays, fueling the machine in abuse and degradation of children. A court can't lose sight of the children used and the obvious effect on their innoncence.

"The very e-mail address used by Mr. Edwards is troubling in itself...surprising for the father of children ages seven and five," concluded the judge.