Police clear Townshend

Musician claims entry to child porn site for research

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON -- British rock guitarist and Who co-founder Pete Townshend was cleared Wednesday of possessing pornographic images of children but was placed on the U.K.'s national register of sex offenders.

London's Metropolitan Police ordered the registration as part of a formal caution Townshend received for accessing a Web site containing images of child abuse in 1999. Townshend, 57, was arrested in January in Operation Ore, an FBI-led crackdown on Internet child porn.

The musician acknowledged using his credit card to enter the Web site but said he was doing research for his autobiography. Townshend denied being a pedophile and said he had campaigned against child pornography.