An award-winning former regional daily business journalist has avoided jail after being convicted of child porn offences.

Barry Turnbull, left, a former journalist with the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo, pleaded guilty to possessing 36 indecent images of children as young as 10 at Liverpool Crown Court on Tuesday.

The court was told that he held sick online discussions with other “like-minded” men about abusing children, using video calling service Skype.

The Liverpool Echo reported that he had been described in court as “hard-working” as a newspaper journalist but had suffered a “spectacular” fall from grace.

Turnbull, 55, of Park Road East, Birkenhead, joined the now-defunct Liverpool Daily Post in 2001 as chief business reporter then worked as editor of a number of specialist business publications for Trinity Mirror in the North West, before returning to the Daily Post as business features editor.

In 2001, he was named the top daily newspaper journalist at the Northern Business Journalist of the Year awards, when judges praised him for “investigative reporting of the highest standard”.

Turnbull left the regional publisher in 2010 to work as a freelance, specialising in business, industry, food and motoring, according to an online freelance listing.

At Liverpool Crown Court, Simon Duncan, prosecuting, said police IT experts had found searches for “underage girls,” “underage bikini babes” and “12 year old sex” on Turnbull’s computer in February 2014.

Turnbull was charged with four counts of possessing indecent images of children, one count of possessing an extreme pornographic image involving a woman and a dog and one count of possessing a prohibited image of a child.

The court was told that the images included a 13-year-old girl being raped by an adult man, and one of the images was the most serious Category A, while four were Category B and the remaining 31 were Category C.

Mr Duncan said: “In interview, Turnbull said it first started with him answering adverts from men looking for sex on the internet site Craigslist, and he descended into a fantasy world.”

The court was told that Turnbull had been “bored” and “frustrated,” but claimed he got no gratification from the images and said he used them to “titillate” other men, in what “became like a game.”

Neil Gunn, defending, told the court his client had been “industrious” and “hard-working” as a newspaper journalist and was a man of previous good character.

He said: “His fall from grace has been quite spectacular.”

The court was told that publicity about the case had already forced Turnbull to move house twice.

Sentencing him, Judge Andrew Hatton said: “The images may be few in number but you know, having viewed them, that children have suffered abuse in order for these images to be created.”

But Judge Hatton conceded the defendant showed “genuine remorse” and a desire to change.

Turnbull was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for two years, and subjected to a two year supervision order.

He was also ordered to sign the sex offenders register for ten years and subjected to a sexual harm prevention order for two years.