Patrick Rock, a former aide to David Cameron, has been given a two-year conditional discharge for making indecent images of children.
The 65-year-old walked free from Southwark Crown Court after being convicted of downloading pictures of scantily-clad girls as young as 10 in sexual poses.
He faced 20 charges of making an indecent photograph of a child.
Rock, of Fulham, southwest London, had claimed the 20 images he downloaded on to his iPad over three days in August 2013 were not indecent.
The jury in London were shown images of girls aged 10 to 16 posing in clothing including bikinis, hot pants and a bra, and a ballet tutu.
Rock's defence lawyer compared the images to Britney Spears' video for her 1998 song Hit Me Baby One More Time, which she made when she was 16.
Sasha Wass, QC, said they contained no nudity and the most the prosecution could say was they showed "young girls in sexually suggestive poses".
The jury took more than eight hours to convict him by majority verdict of five counts.
He was acquitted of three similar charges, while jurors were unable to agree on the 12 remaining counts and were discharged, meaning the charges will lie on file.
The court heard that the youngest of the girls in the pictures was aged just 10 years and four months when he downloaded the image - meaning she would have been younger when it was taken.
Judge Alistair McCreath said: "I have not lost sight of the obvious reality that right-thinking people will quite properly consider that those who did what you did should be punished for it.
"You should be. And you have been.
"The punishment for you is the loss of your reputation and your very public humiliation.
"It is a punishment which you brought on yourself, but is nonetheless a very real one. And it is one that is utterly merited."
Rock must register as a sex offender for the duration of the two years and was also banned from using a device with the internet unless it can retain his browsing history and he surrenders it for inspection by police on request over the same period.
He was warned by the judge that prison would be "inevitable" if he were to reoffend within two years, was also ordered to pay £12,500 in court costs.
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