A Staffordshire vicar has denied viewing child pornography on the internet, telling a jury that he would have found such images "horrendous".
The Reverend Dominic Stone, a team vicar in four rural parishes, told a jury he had refused to look at court documents showing the images he is accused of downloading.
The married clergyman, from Marchington, near Uttoxeter, is alleged to have accessed indecent images of children on his computer while working on church-related business at his vicarage.
But the 47-year-old, who denies 16 specimen counts of making indecent photographs of children, told Stafford Crown Court that other people may have used his computer.
After conceding that he had used the internet to look at adult pornography, the Church of England vicar said: "I am just not interested in children in any sort of sexual way - that would be horrendous.
"From the written descriptions of these images, I can tell you I have never seen them.
"I know I have never seen any of these images."
During his testimony, the father-of-two said he had not searched the internet for the location of a church, or for details of a hymn, at around the time that indecent material was accessed.
He also told the court that several people in the local community had keys to the vicarage and that someone else may have let themselves into the property.
The Crown alleges that Stone used the computer to access indecent images of children on both January 7 and 8, 2009.
