A pair of identical twins have been ordered to sign the sexual offences register over child pornography offences.
James Blackie, aged 26, downloaded 240 still images and moving clips of youngsters aged between four and 13 – some showing serious sexual abuse – and went on to share some with other paedophiles.
A court heard that he got involved after becoming intrigued at what his brother Patrick had been looking at.
Patrick Blackie was jailed for 15 months in January after committing a sex attack in front of a boy and having 20 child pornography photos on his computer. He has since been released.
James Blackie was arrested after police were tipped off that a computer was being misused at a home in Great Harwood.
James Blackie, who lives in Blackburn, admitted eight charges of possessing an indecent photo of a child and eight counts of distributing an indecent photo of a child, between last November and May this year.
He was sentenced to 20 months in jail.
Both twins have been ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for 10 years. Their cases are not connected.
Mercedeh Jabbari, prosecuting, said police executed a search warrant after receiving information.
James Blackie later admitted that he had downloaded the images.
Burnley Crown Court heard that James Blackie, a former university student, claimed at first that he did not get a thrill out of it, but later admitted he did get sexually aroused.
The court heard that James Blackie, who had already been cautioned for possessing indecent images of children, got the images from a file-sharing website on the internet.
Daniel Prowse, for James Blackie, said the website was not a paedophile network necessarily but he did find people who told him about the images of children. At first he only downloaded them, but in April and May he moved from looking at them to sharing some of them.
The barrister said: "He knows that what he did was wholly wrong."
Mr Prowse said Blackie recognised he had a problem, wanted to address it and had sought counselling.
He told the hearing: "He finds his own sexual attraction and the photos themselves to be quite disgusting."
James Blackie was also made the subject of a 10 year sexual offences prevention order, restricting internet use and banning him from unsupervised contact with children under 16 and from allowing any youngsters into his home. He was disqualified from working with children.
