A PAEDOPHILE has been sent back to jail for two-and-a-half years for downloading hundreds of child porn images.

Paul Emsley – said to be obsessed with young boys - flouted a lifetime Sexual Offences Prevention Order imposed in November 2008 for indecent pictures offences. It was just four months after it was imposed.

He served a 45-month jail term for previous convictions for indecent images of children from 1999 and also for sexual assaults.

Burnley Crown Court heard he was banned from owning or possessing any mobile phone which had still or video facilities but police found more obscene shots on two mobile phones when they raided his home in Randall Street, Burnley, last June.

Emsley, 42, said to have been a victim of sex abuse when he was a child, claimed he wanted the images to satisfy his sexual urges and that by having them he had been able to resist any temptation to seek out direct contact with boys.

The defendant, who is also on the Sex Offenders' Register for life, had earlier admitted two counts of breaching the SOPO, 25 allegations of making an indecent photo of a child and three counts of possessing an indecent photo of a child.

The hearing was told 15 of the making an indecent photo counts and one possession charge involved 317 images and went back to October 2008 in Ellesmere Port, a month before the SOPO was imposed at Chester Crown Court.

The other charges, concerning almost 50 pictures, related to offences committed in Burnley between March and June last year. The photos were from level one to level five and came from more than one source, police said.

Judge Beverley Lunt, sentencing, said the seriousness of the offences was the breach of the SOPO.

She said: "That order was made in order to protect the public from serious harm being caused by you."

Judge Lunt added that although a probation officer had assessed the defendant as a dangerous offender, she was not ruling he was.

David Macro, prosecuting, told the hearing the SOPO was imposed on November 24 2008 after the defendant was convicted of 13 charges of making an indecent photo of a child and one of taking an indecent photo.

On June 18 last year, police went to Emsley's home and found the two camera enabled phones with indecent pictures of young males on them.

Mark Rhind, defending, said Emsley was attracted to pre-pubescent boys and he had been a victim of sexual abuse for many of his formative years.

The barrister added: "There is no doubt in many cases what happens to the boy shapes the man and that seems to be the case with the defendant."