Legendary Who axeman Pete Townshend was cleared today of possessing child pornography. He has, however, been given an official warning and has been placed on the UK’s Sex Offenders Register for a five year period. In accordance with his placement on this sex offender list, police will take a DNA sample from Townshend. If nothing else, future generations will be able to clone the great guitar man for a Who 2048 reunion tour. NME reports a four-month police investigation revealed that Townshend did, in fact, visit a child porn website, but did not download any of the images, which would have yielded stiffer penalties. Police claim that no special “star” treatment was given to Townshend because of his rock legend status. A spokesperson told Reuters, “He has fully co-operated with the investigation and the decision to caution was made in line with police policy.”
Pete Townshend was arrested in January as part of a UK crackdown on child pornography. The star admitted to have visited a child porn site, but claimed that he was doing so in an effort to research a book he plans to write on child abuse.
