A ‘WARPED’ sex offender downloaded hundreds of indecent images and videos of children after finding himself with time on his hands when his work dried up.

Ian Walsh, 28, said he struggled with the term paedophile but said his behaviour had been warped when he started accessing the images between May and August last year.

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Officers from Lancashire Constabulary seized Walsh’s mobile phone when they executed a warrant at his home in Moor Road, Chorley.

Forensic analysis revealed he had downloaded 163 of the most serious category A still and moving images, 156 category B and 440 at category C.

He said he had acted out of “morbid curiosity” after accidentally stumbling across an image of a child aged 10 when he was searching for adult pornography.

Emma Keogh, prosecuting, said: “He was very candid and told police he had gone onto a click share website and started to chat with older females.

“He came across a photo of a young girl and deleted.”

However he later went on to seek out images of children, the court heard.

Richard Archer, defending, said: “He accepts what he did was abhorrent and he has no wish to continue.

“He accepts what he did was wrong and wishes to change.

“He doesn’t use the word paedophile and says it is a word he struggles with but he does say he has faced up to it. Warped is a word he says he has been called before.”

Walsh has voluntarily handed over his mobile phone and computer equipment to the police and tried to self-refer to an internet sex offenders program but the court heard such an order must form part of a sentence in a criminal case.

He pleaded guilty to making indecent images of children and appeared at Preston Crown Court to be sentenced.

Judge Graham Knowles, sentencing, said: “What appears to have happened here is you saw an image which then triggered an obsession or fascination with indecent images of children and you plainly made efforts to obtain more images of that nature.

“You accepted what you had done without any prevarication at all.”

The judge said this acceptance of guilt and wish to change meant he could pass a community sentence and handed Walsh a three year order with conditions to undergo an internet sex offenders program.

He also made a sexual harm prevention order and ordered Walsh to pay a £60 surcharge.