An anti-terror police officer and his detective lover broke down in tears on Friday as a jury cleared them of possessing child pornography.

Gerard Collins, 27, who works in the British Transport Police's counter terrorism unit, and anti-corruption officer Graham Ferguson, 41, were acquitted of hiding the pornography under their bed and in Ferguson's Putney office.

The couple fell into each other's arms as the jury of eight women and four men cleared them of a series of charges relating to the sickening images.

Collins had told Southwark Crown Court there was no way he would have had such pictures as he was only interested in older men and daddy types'.

He said: "I like men much older than me, of larger stockier build, kind of like a daddy type.

"I don't find young people attractive."

Collins, originally from County Cork, Ireland, who was commended for his work after the 7/7 bombings, said his five-year relationship with Ferguson was his "first serious one".

Ferguson, who worked in a Met Police department specialising in investigating corruption, was on sick leave when a depraved DVD was found in his filing cabinet in his office in Putney.

The DVD was found in his office at the Professional Standards Directorate building, Jubilee House, in Putney Bridge Road, alongside numerous other CDs and disks.

Ferguson had "no legitimate reason" for having the DVD and that it did not relate to any of his work prior to his sick leave, the court heard.

The detective constable insisted he had no idea how the images had got there and that he had never seen them.

Following the find, a search of the couple's London home uncovered a laptop, floppy disk and CD containing similar vile images.

Both men were arrested but maintained they had no knowledge of the images.

Collins told the court he had never been interested in women, and some of the photographs found were of young girls.

He explained he would download homosexual pornography "in bulk" and set the computer up to store the images overnight from websites such as "daddy swap".

Asked why he had images of children on his laptop and a copied CD he said: "These two images must have duplicated onto the CD when I reformatted the laptop.

"I would copy and paste the information from the laptop onto CD.'"

Of his arrest at work he said: "It was a shock."

The men were cleared of two counts of possessing indecent photographs on or about January 30 last year.

Ferguson alone was cleared of possessing indecent images in relation to the disk found in his office.

And Collins alone was cleared of two counts of making indecent images and a further count of possessing similar material.