A Saskatoon man who admits downloading child pornography from the Internet was sentenced Friday to 10 months in jail.

Richard Vilness, 23, will also be on probation for three years after his release.

Defence lawyer Kevin Hill told Judge Peter Kolenick his client has been in counselling to address the childhood sexual abuse he suffered between ages five and eight.

"That victimization likely led to his being here today," Hill said.

Vilness now has a high level of insight into the origins of his problem, Hill said

Sgt. Darren Parisien of the Internet child exploitation unit with the Saskatoon Police Service identified a Saskatoon Internet address downloading child pornography videos on Sept. 9, 2009, said Crown prosecutor Michael Segu. Further investigation revealed a user at the same IP address had a history of downloading 15 known child pornography files between August 2009 and October 2009.

A search of the Saskatoon residence associated with that IP address turned up a laptop computer that was discovered to contain six child pornography images, Segu said.

Vilness told an officer at the scene he had installed the Limewire file sharing program and downloaded the images for sexual gratification. He also said he knew how the program worked and that by not turning off the file sharing feature the images were available to other users, but he left it on, Segu said.

During his probation, Vilness must attend sex offender treatment and may not be alone with persons under 16. He may not use or have a computer or device capable of accessing the Internet and must submit to a police search of his home or vehicle.