Conservative leader David Cameron has described the freeing of an internet paedophile after Home Secretary John Reid asked judges to spare less serious offenders as a "disgraceful state of affairs".
He said "we can't have" situations such as Thursday's in Wales where Judge John Rogers QC gave Derek Williams, 46, a six-month sentence suspended for two years at Mold Crown Court, saying "as of yesterday I have to bear in mind a communication from the Home Secretary".
Mr Cameron, answering questions from the audience at the Guardian public services summit in St Albans, Herts, said: "What we can't have is what has just happened in Wales, where a judge stands up in court and says, 'though I'm faced with someone who is guilty of dealing with child pornography, I'm not going to send him to prison because the Home Secretary has told me not to'.
"I think that's a disgraceful state of affairs, because the Government has seen the problem, and stuck its head in the sand about it."
Earlier in his speech, Mr Cameron attacked the Government over the "road crash" of prisons overcrowding.
He said the resignation of Rod Morgan as head of the youth justice board was "another example of failure of policy, planning and political will at the Home Office".
He said there had been a failure of policy by the Government because re-offending rates had gone up.
"There has been a failure of planning, because despite repeated warnings the Government simply hasn't put in what was necessary in terms of prison places, and political will, because even at the time when it was clear the Government was heading for a major road crash in terms of overcrowding, nothing was done.
"The fact that criminals using child pornography are escaping prison is the responsibility of the Government."
