Pete Townshend Considered Suicide

Rock guitarist Pete Townshend considered suicide after his arrest on suspicion of possessing child pornography, a newspaper quoted him as saying.

"If I had had a gun, I would have shot myself," The Who co-founder said in The Observer Sunday newspaper. "And if I had shot myself, it would have been ... awful because it would have confirmed what everybody thought."

He reportedly said that low point came after his arrest in January as part of Operation Ore, an FBI-led crackdown on Internet child pornography.

Townshend was cleared in May of possessing pornographic images of children but still was placed on a national register of sex offenders. That registration was part of a formal police caution he received for accessing a Web site containing images of child abuse.

London's Metropolitan Police said after a four-month investigation that Townshend "was not in possession of any downloaded child abuse images" but had accessed a site containing such images in 1999.

The 58-year-old musician acknowledged using his credit card to enter a Web site advertising child pornography but said he was doing research for his autobiography and a campaign against child pornography. He denies being a pedophile.

The Observer quoted him as reiterating that denial, although he acknowledged that his actions were "wrong" and "stupid."

"The legal position is clear, my experience is clear, my culpability is clear, but my innocence is absolute," he reportedly said. "I'm certain of my own standing before God, which is the level at which I'll be judged."

He said he looked forward to touring again, but added that "the whole thing has changed my standing in society substantially."