A Sutton Bridge man who downloaded hundreds of indecent images of children has been jailed at Lincoln Crown Court.
Police officers who checked the computer of Russell Nason found images of children as young as four years old being abused.
And the search history of the computer revealed that Nason had carried out searches specifically aimed at finding child abuse websites.
Nason (34) of Wrights Lane, admitted three charges of making a total of 1,081 indecent images of children between May 2009 and September 2016 together with a further charge of possession of extreme pornography.
He was jailed for eight months and placed on the sex offenders’ register for ten years. He was also given a ten-year sexual harm prevention order.
Judge Simon Hirst, passing sentence, told him: “The images in your case involve children as young as four. There are moving images with one of the films being 46 minutes long.
“You have deliberately and systematically searched for indecent images of children over a number of years.
“There is a common perception about this type of offending that it is victimless. It is not victimless in any way.
“Every photograph or frame of a film has the face of a child who has been sexually abused in the most cruel way imaginable. In behaving as you did you perpetuate the market and the distribution of such images.
“Whilst acknowledging that you have powerful mitigation this is so serious that only an immediate custodial sentence can be passed.”
Jonathan Dunne, prosecuting, said that Nason was arrested in September 2016 after police carried out a search of his home and removed a laptop and hard drive computer.
“He made substantial admissions in interview saying he was suffering from stress. This had plainly been going on for a long time. The ages of the children involved were predominantly in the 11 -13 age range although some were younger with children as young as four or five.”
John McNally, in mitigation, said that Nason had problems of his own and is also the carer for his partner.
He said that Nason had become socially isolated and added: “This is a young man who when sitting at home on the computer started to look at things he shouldn’t have.”
