Pete Townshend cleared, cautioned on porn

LONDON, May 7 (UPI) -- Rock star Pete Townshend has been placed on a sex offender registry but cleared of possessing child pornography, Scotland Yard said Wednesday.

Townshend was arrested in January on suspicion of making and possessing indecent images of children and of incitement to distribute indecent images of children. In a prepared statement, London's Metropolitan Police said the co-founder of The Who has received a formal caution for accessing a Web site that featured child abuse images.

"After four months of investigation by officers from Scotland Yard's Child Protection Group, it was established that Mr. Townshend was not in possession of any downloaded child abuse images," the statement said.

Scotland Yard said Townshend had fully cooperated with investigators.

In a message posted on his Web site, Townshend repeated the explanation he offered in January -- that he had accessed Web sites containing child pornography as part of his research for a planned campaign against online pornography.

"From the very beginning, I acknowledged that I did access this site and that I had given the police full access to all of my computers," he said. "As I made clear at the outset, I accessed the site because of my concerns at the shocking material readily available on the Internet to children as well as adults, and as part of my research toward the campaign I had been putting together since 1995 to counter damage done by all kinds of pornography on the internet, but especially any involving child abuse."

The posting at Townshend's Web site said the lead guitarist and main songwriter of the legendary band The Who had contacted the Internet Watch Foundation -- an organization that monitor's pedophile activity -- to alert the group about the site he visited.

"The police have unconditionally accepted that these were my motives in looking at this site and that there was no other nefarious purpose, and as a result they have decided not to charge me," said Townshend. "I accept that I was wrong to access this site, and that by doing so, I broke the law, and I have accepted the caution."

Townshend was arrested in January under the Protection of Children Act as part of Operation Ore, a crackdown on Internet child pornography. He denied at the time that he is a pedophile.

"I think pedophilia is appalling," Townshend said at the time. "To fight against pedophilia, you have to know what's out there."

Townshend said he was working "as a vigilante" to help organizations that fight child abuse. He also said he was trying to help Scotland Yard "to build up a powerful and well-informed voice to speak loudly about the millions of dollars being made by American banks and credit card companies" that profit from online pornography.

Operation Ore has resulted in the arrest of some 1,300 suspects -- including a judge, a deputy school headmaster, several doctors and dentists and 50 police officers.