Aviation expert Andrew Saunders did not plunder the war grave of a hero pilot, a judge said.

The 47-year-old Second World War aircraft expert had been the victim of a personal grudge, Hove Crown Court heard.

He had been accused of disturbing the body of Flying Officer George Edward Kosh during the excavation of his crashed Hawker Tempest in 1995.

Claims that the pilot's head and torso were intact in the wreckage and disintegrated as Saunders and others examined them were completely untrue, Judge David Rennie said.

Saunders, of St Mary's Road, Hastings, pleaded guilty to removing remains, small fragments of bone as personal effects, from the wreckage.

He was given a one-year conditional discharge after the court heard he had committed a technical offence only which related to going ahead with the excavation of the wreckage a month before he had the appropriate Ministry of Defence licence.

The court heard he had replaced the bones immediately after they were discovered but admitted keeping Flying Officer Kosh's identity bracelet and an Egyptian amulet he wore as a good luck charm.

The pilot's Tempest plunged into field at Winchelsea, near Rye, as he tried to shoot down a Nazi V1 flying bomb as it crossed the Sussex coast in July 1944.

Saunders excavated the crash site at Rye Marsh Farm in an attempt to discover what had happened to the dead pilot but believed his body had already been given a full military funeral and was buried at a cemetery in Hawkinge, Kent.

One of those at the excavation was local photographer Anthony Rogers, who gave what was described as a "lurid and grotesque" description of how Flying Officer Kosh's body had been tampered with.

Judge Rennie said: "I am of the view that in his grotesque description he has lied to the police and the basis of his claims are in the nature of a personal grudge."

Mr Saunders said after he was sentenced: "I feel fully vindicated."