A GWENT police officer found guilty of sharing hundreds of child sex abuse images over the internet will be sentenced today.

Detective Constable Michael Thomas, 40, of Port Talbot, used free picture-sharing software to send and receive obscene images of children.

Thomas, who went under the screen name of Oscarnovind2 received almost 2,500 images and sent 253 himself over seven months in 2007.

A jury at Cardiff Crown Court found him guilty of 11 counts of distributing indecent pictures of children and 10 of making such pictures earlier this month.

The Gwent police officer was also convicted of one count of possessing indecent pictures of children.

Thomas was caught after an FBI investigation led to a distributor in the West Midlands.

During his trial it was revealed that he had sent photographs to an undercover police officer who he thought was a paedophile.

When his home was raided police discovered around 30,000 files had been wiped from Thomas's computer just hours before.

He will be sentenced by judge David Morris at Newport Crown Court this afternoon.