"I should never have given in to them," the 31-year-old clergyman said in a Senja court on Thursday. He claimed that it was the hunt for child porn images on the Internet that was the real thrill, rather than the pictures themselves.

"Finding new child porn pictures was a kind of extreme sport, something I did to seek excitement since life was so boring," the man said.

The curate gave a calm and articulate defense of his position, and told a tale of a man who hated himself and hid behind a respectable facade.

The man said that a year of psychotherapy had helped him come to grips with his need to search the Internet for child porn every day.

The 31-year-old had regular visits from youngsters at his quarters and was actively involved with the local boy scouts. He has consistently denied any sexual advances towards the boys who visited him, but regretted showing them porn films.

"They nagged about watching and it was difficult for me to stop them. They viewed me as a friend and came to me with their curiosity and previous experiences with pornography. But when one of them pulled down his pants I said no. If I hadn't set limits before, I did then at least," the defendant said.

The curate said that he did not rule out trying to work as a minister again, saying he felt he had become a better clergyman from his experience.