Children's charities have reacted with fury after Government-appointed officials published guidelines telling judges not to jail some paedophiles.

A so-called league table issued by the Sentencing Advisory Panel said heavy jail sentences should be reserved for only the most serious offences, while viewing child pornography should not automatically be treated as child abuse.

It said even paedophiles with large collections of "erotic" images of children could be punished by "community sentences" instead of prison.

A five-point sliding-scale system ranging from nude or erotic posing in level one to images of sadism or bestiality in level five, has been introduced.

And judges were told by the Sentencing Advisory Panel that viewing child pornography should not automatically be treated as child abuse.

And a 10-year maximum jail term should be reserved for "very serious examples".

A report from the panel also said anyone in possession of artificially-created "pseudo photographs" of children should be treated at the "lowest level of seriousness".

This drew the strongest reaction from a coalition of children's organisations, including NCH, the NSPCC and Barnados, which labelled the advice "completely ridiculous and unacceptable".

They immediately pledged to campaign against the recommendation, saying a similar move in the United States six months ago saw a drop in child pornography prosecutions because of difficulties in proving if an image was real.

John Carr, of the Children's Charities Coalition for Internet Safety, said:"This is really a grave error on the part of the advisory panel and one which we will campaign to change.

"Images created artificially can be indistinctive from real images.

"The effect will be that it reduces the significance and importance of this type of image. Our view is if it looks real, it should be treated as real because it has the same effect on the viewer."

(Parts of this article appear courtesy of the Yorkshire Evening Post)