The first I knew about it was when my daughter rang me up. “Has he told you yet?” she said. “Told me what?” I asked. All she would say was that there was “something the matter”, but that he’d better tell me. I rang my son straight away.

When he said he had been arrested, my first thought was, “Oh no, he must be joking”. When he said he had been caught downloading child porn, there was – at first – a certain relief. I was so stunned, I didn’t know what to feel or how to react. I felt all I could do was to keep talking.

I asked if he had ever taken it further. He swore he hadn’t and I believed him. He sounded disappointed and kept saying, “I’ve let you down.” I said, “No, it’s yourself you’ve let down.”

He told me later he had started off looking at adult porn, but had been downloading child pornography for 8 months. When he went to talk to the detective he said he did it out of curiosity but he also said he had a lot! (More than 100)

He said it started when he was 19(now 20), my son spent a lot of time on the computer we thought he’d just like to go on and play games or watch youtube videos

I was shocked to find all this out. I hadn’t a clue my son was into that sort of thing. I didn’t feel disgusted by him – he’s still my son and you don’t just turn your back on someone because they have done something wrong, however bad. I did worry at first about what I might have done in his childhood to make him this way, and felt guilty that it might be my fault, but he’s told me there’s nothing I could have done.

Looking back, I can see he was always a bit of a loner and didn’t understand how other people tick, he didn’t really have friends at school and always seemed to do bad in school. He has never had a girlfriend. He prefers his own company, which I feel is part of the problem. Since this has happened, I’ve encouraged him to go out more.

I just can’t get used to the name paedophile, can’t square it with the son I know. He has always been so sweet and loving, and has a very close relationship with his sisters, who are helping him through this. I think he finds it easier to talk to them because obviously you don’t want to talk to your mum about sexual matters.

I was surprised when he told me he was trying to go to counseling . It’s been over a month and they still haven’t called him from the counseling center.(The detective recommended it) – it isn’t the sort of thing you can chat to neighbors about over the fence.

I’ve never seen child pornography and I wouldn’t want to, but in my book group we read something that touched on child abuse, which gave me some idea. I do feel bad that what my son has done has contributed to children being abused; I’m finding that very hard to come to terms with, and I know he was really upset by the session on his course where they looked at how downloading child pornography actually affects real children who are being abused to create the pictures. He was very depressed for weeks after that and I feared he might commit suicide.

On the whole, he is relieved it’s all out in the open, but he is also afraid he will go to prison when his case comes to court. He still has no job and didn’t want to go to college – his brother and sisters know all about it and are still happy for him to see his young nephews and nieces, although now they wouldn’t let him go out on his own with the children. We all had a discussion about it and thought we shouldn’t put temptation in his way. We also no longer go to places where there might be children, such as the beach. I see it as an addiction and you wouldn’t offer an alcoholic a drink.

We haven’t told the children yet, but I don’t feel they are at risk as my son has never actually abused a child. I’m not sure how I’d feel if he had.

I often wake up in the night worrying about him, trying to fathom out why he is like this and what will happen to him. But I don’t feel having a son like this is the worst thing that can happen to a mother – if he had an incurable illness, that would be worse. I just try to keep it in my head that he isn’t all bad. I still love him and stand by him – after all, it’s not as if he has murdered someone.