British comedy actor Chris Langham has left prison after being granted a four-month cut in his sentence for downloading child pornography.
The Bafta award-winner was sent to prison for 10 months in September after being found guilty of 15 counts of making an indecent photograph of a child.
During his trial, Langham, (58), a father-of-five from Golford, near Cranbrook, Kent, said the material was for research into a part for a TV comedy show.
His second application for a sentence reduction was successful at a hearing before three judges at the Court of Appeal in London. Langham, who denied the charges, was not present for the hearing.
Without a sentence reduction he would have been due to be released in six weeks time.
His wife, Christine Cartwright, was reported as saying he feared for his life in prison and had been verbally abused, taunted, and had had missiles thrown at him and his cell flooded by other prisoners.
After his release from Elmley Prison, Kent, the actor said: "My life has been ruined but my conscience is clear."
"The court's acceptance based upon all the evidence and expert opinion that I have no sexual interest in children has been completely ignored in the reporting of the case.
"However, perhaps the media cannot be blamed for this misrepresentation when the judge, having accepted that I'm not a paedophile, then sent me to prison for 10 months as if I was.
"To set the record straight, I never paid to look at the material. I saw a tiny number of images of child abuse which I have always said were distressing, sickening and atrocious.
"I looked because I was writing about the subject of child abuse. My own abuse as a child made it important for me to attempt to address this subject in my writing.
"I was wrong to do so but I believe the price I have been asked to pay is out of all proportion."