The Who's Pete Townshend has explained his "insane" attempt to expose the spread of child abuse images on the internet, which resulted in his high-profile arrest.
The songwriter and guitarist was eventually cleared of possessing illegal images of children in 2003, but not until after the scandal caused lasting damage to his image.
At the time, he claimed to be looking at a website while conducting research for a campaign against images of child sex abuse on the internet. He was cautioned and placed on the sex offenders register for five years after admitting breaking the law.
In an interview to publicise his autobiography, Who I Am, Townshend said his actions were a misguided attempt at "white knight syndrome" – his desire to be seen as a hero.
"It's a product of success. I had experienced something creepy as a child, so you imagine, what if I was a girl of nine or 10 and my uncle had raped me every week? I felt I had an understanding, and I could help. What I did was insane," he told the Times newspaper, which is serialising the book.
He said he intended to reveal the financial trail of child abuse from Russian orphanages to British banks by paying a £7 fee to access a child pornography site with his credit card, which he cancelled immediately, but he fell foul of officers investigating the sites as part of the FBI-led Operation Ore crackdown.
As part of the cautioning procedure, Townshend's fingerprints, photograph and a DNA sample were taken by police and he was placed on a national register of sex offenders for five years.
He said he felt attempts to try to clear his name following the scandal would prove futile. "I've had the misfortune to read online comments where I'm judged as a paedophile because I've got a big nose," he said.
Following a four-month investigation, the Metropolitan police said Townshend "was not in possession of any downloaded child abuse images," but had accessed a site containing such images in 1999.
Operation Ore led to almost 4,000 arrests, including those of judges, teachers, doctors, care workers, soldiers and more than 50 police officers.
Who I Am will be released on 11 October.
