A "highly regarded' foster carer who downloaded hundreds of indecent photographs of children, including some as young as two, will be sentenced later this month. 

Gerrard Gibbs's home in Sunnydene Avenue, Highams Park, was searched by officers from the Child Abuse Investigation Unit in April this year following intelligence suggesting he had accessed the images online. 

Officers seized his computer and found 178 indecent images of children which Gibbs had downloaded and then deleted between March 2013 and March 2014 this year.   

Following his arrest on April 4, the 59-year-old registered foster carer and primary school mentor, was charged with five counts of taking an indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child. 

He pleaded guilty to all five counts at Thames Magistrates Court on September 15 and was released on conditional bail to reappear for sentencing yesterday. 

In mitigation, Gibbs's solicitor Tony Meisels told the court yesterday how his client had downloaded the images from the internet, but could not be charged with possession as the images were not 'live' as they had been deleted from his hard drive. 

Mr Meisels explained how Gibbs was "highly regarded by the local authority as an excellent carer".

His sentencing was adjourned until October 27 for further risk assessments.

For more on this story see this week's Guardian - out Thursday.