A mere nine years after the story first broke, Pete Townshend has broken his silence over the child pornography scandal at last, giving the ‘full’ story of events in his upcoming autobiography Who I Am.

The Who guitarist spoke to The Times magazine recently to promote the book and set a few things clear about the damning scandal, insisting that he was doing research on the subject and instantly regretted his actions. The guitarist revealed that he was suffering from ‘white knight syndrome’ and wanted to appear to be the guy trying to do something about the issue, but instead was caught in a nationwide police sting to arrest online child predators and pornography users. He told the newspaper, “I had experienced something creepy as a child, so you imagine: what if I was a girl of 9 or 10 and my uncle had raped me every week? I felt I had an understanding, and I could help.”

Townshend was planning on putting together a report that proved that child pornography leaves an international money trail behind it, linking Russian orphanages to British banks. Townshend then paid a £7 sign up fee to a child pornography site, although he immediately cancelled the transaction. When police linked him to the site, they checked his computer and, although that too showed no signs of illicit images on it, the damage had already been done to his image.