Paedophile who downloaded half a million child abuse images jailed after begging for help

A paedophile who downloaded nearly half a million obscene images of children has been jailed after telling police he needed help.

Andrew White, 42, was caught with some of the most graphic material possible involving sadistic and violent abuse of youngsters.

A court heard that he also trawled Facebook looking for girls as young as 11.

White, an engineer, had gone to get help for his addiction from a GP but told him he had depression instead of the truth.

But police were later tipped off and they raided his home and found his horrific hoard which had been built up over TEN years.

Marti Blair, prosecuting, said White immediately showed them where to find the disgusting images because he “wanted to get help”.

They discovered 46,959 indecent images on a hard drive, including 46 at level five – the most serious category.

A further 321,472 images and 532 movies were also found plus 76,739 images and 230 movies on a laptop.

Cambridge Crown Court heard that White scoured Facebook for images of girls as young as 11 which he stored in a folder titled ‘Too Young’.

Ms Blair said the pervert was attracted to skinny women and so he sought pictures of young girls.

White, of Milton, Cambs., was jailed for two years after admitting five different charges of possessing indecent images of children.

Judge Gareth Hawkesworth said he believed his remorse was genuine.

He said: “You accept you had a number of images at levels four and five which involved penetrative sexual activity with a child and images of a sadistic and violent nature.”

Richard Gowthorpe, mitigating, said “he knew what he was doing was wrong” but said it was a “problem of addiction”.

White admitted two charges of possessing indecent images, two charges of making indecent images and one charge of possession of prohibited images.