A PERVERT who downloaded more than 8,000 indecent images of children, some as young as six months old, has been jailed for three years.

Kevin Mundy, 43, of Johnson Way, Ludgershall, admitted 15 counts of making indecent images of children, two counts of distributing and one count of possessing indecent images at Salisbury Crown Court yesterday.

Police searched Mundy’s house in September last year after a tip off that he had swapped images in a chat room. They seized his computer and found 8,643 images and 124 films.

The images included 17 classed as the most serious level 5 and 1,148 at level 4. Over 7,000 of the images involved children under the age of 13.

Ian Halliday, prosecuting, said: “The pictures had deliberately been saved in named files in a specific area of the computer. This was an organised attempt at collection.”

He said Mundy had also distributed three level 1 pictures through an internet chat room and had distributed 100 images, the majority of which were level 1, but included two level 3 and two level 4 images.

Adam Feest, defending, said both the psychiatric report and pre-sentence report painted a bleak picture of Mundy’s mental state at the time of the offences.

Mundy said when interviewed with police that he had first been drawn into looking at adult pornography through loneliness and then went on to look at images of children.

Mr Feest said Mundy had not systematically distributed images, it was only on two isolated occasions.

Mundy had no recollection of distributing the images, as he was drinking heavily and using cannabis at the time, but accepted he must have done so and had fully co-operated with police.

Mr Feest said: “He wanted the court to know that he was deeply ashamed for what he had done and disgusted. At the time he didn’t fully realise what he was doing, now he looks at himself and feels as though he was the one abusing these children. I think that is the first important step for people like him, to realise the damage that images like these do.”

Recorder Ben Compton said: “The scale of this speaks for itself. Any right thinking person would be shocked and really de-humanised that anyone could participate in any form of photographs like that. I have no doubt that you are a lonely and, in some respects, sad individual.

“You are unable to accept that you pose any risk to children but I disagree with that, you clearly are a risk to children. These offences are so serious that only a custodial sentence will do, to reflect society’s abhorrence with this type of offence.”

Mundy was also barred from engaging in any activity with children or vulnerable adults and disqualified from working with children. He will remain on the Sex Offenders Register for life.