A former lifeboat crew member from Southwold who was found to have indecent images of children on his computer after he was arrested for taking a photograph up the skirt of a schoolgirl has been jailed for two years and eight months.

Sentencing 53-year-old Peter Norval at Ipswich Crown Court, Judge John Holt said he posed a high risk of causing sexual harm to children.

Judge Holt said Norval’s offending came to light after he used his mobile phone to take a photograph up a 14-year-old girl’s skirt in a Southwold Tesco store on February 1 last year.

After his arrest police officers seized Norval’s laptop and iPad and discovered a number of indecent images of children on them.

He said that 32 of the images were of unknown children but 27 others were “high quality” pseudo images in which Norvel had superimposed the head of a 14-year-old girl on the bodies of women in explicit poses.

Judge Holt said some of the images featured naked men and Norval could be identified in one of the pictures.

Norval, of Victoria Street, Southwold admitted two offences of making indecent images of children and one offence of outraging public decency on February 1 by taking the photograph up the girl’s skirt.

He was jailed for two years for the offences of making indecent images with eight months to be served consecutively for outraging public decency.

He was made the subject of a sexual offences prevention order for 10 years.

Matthew Buckland, for Norval, said his client had no previous convictions and had formerly been a RNLI crew member during which he had gone out in all weathers to rescue people in need of help.

“This demonstrates selfless and commendable courage,” said Mr Buckland.

He said Norval had been married for 28 years and his wife was “fully supportive” of him.

Mr Buckland said Norval had been diagnosed by psychiatrists as suffering from untreated post traumatic stress disorder arising out of him fighting in a war in Africa more than 25 years ago.

Mr Buckland said Norval’s offending was triggered by seeing a picture he didn’t approve of on the internet of the schoolgirl whose head he superimposed in the pseudo images.

“He accepts he has acted in a wholly inappropriate way,” said Mr Buckland.

He said Norval had been receiving counselling at his own expense and was anxious to receive treatment for his problems.