A parish council discovered its website had been doctored by porn-pushing "robots" after being alerted by a parent whose daughter found links to X-rated images.

East Peckham Parish Council learnt the gallery page on its website had been linked to pornographic sites, as well as sites selling viagra and sex toys, only after receiving an anonymous tip-off.

Council chairman Peter Crawford said he "didn't investigate" the links himself, but understood they had been removed shortly after their discovery. He added: "It wasn't really that serious - it was a slight embarrassment, but its not endangered anyone."

Vice chairman - and parish council web expert - David Poole, believed "robot programmes" from Russia had crawled into the East Peckham site to place the links.

He said: "I think it's come out of Russia but the hackers didn't hijack the site. The hackers generate robot programmes that crawl around the web looking for places to attach these links.

"They just appended a couple of dozen links to undesirable pornographic sites; some of them were for sites selling Viagra and sex toys."

He said he was unsure how long the links had been on the council site. He said he hadn't told the police but had taken appropriate action.

And he added: "Do visit our site - it's quite pretty."

The most titillating picture we could find on the site this week was a photo of the Bush Blackbird and Thrush pub.