A NEWPORT man has been jailed for possessing more than 17,700 indecent images of children which included a eight-year-old child who had their hands and legs bound with rope.

Jason Evans, aged 46, of St Julian Street, Newport, was sentenced at Newport Crown Court yesterday for three counts of possession of indecent photos of children.

He pleaded guilty to all three counts at the hearing.

Jason Howells, prosecuting, told the court that police on August 30, of this year, searched the defendant's home where they found a total of 17,727 indecent images of children.

The court heard 283 of these images were category A - the most serious; 283 images were category B and 17,161 were category C images. They were a mixture of photos and videos showing mainly girls between six and 12-years-old.

Of the 283 category A images; 153 were photos and 130 were videos. Mr Howells said some of these were of children under two-years-old.

He told the court in some of the images the children appeared in 'pain', there was use of ropes and also animals involved.

The court heard, the defendant co-operated with police and answered the door to officers saying 'I'll show you where they are to speed things up for you." Police recovered a computer tower and a number of hard drives.

Evans told police in his interview that he had been an amphetamine addict for 20 years but had been clean up until just before his arrest. The defendant admitted he searched for terms including school 'girls in uniform' and 'pre-teen hard core.'

Mr Howells said police also found 37, 291 other images which have yet to be categorised but a sample were category C.

Ben Waters, defending, said Evans was 'ashamed' and said the defendant lives in a 'virtual reality.'

He said Evans developed an addiction to pornography which progressed to looking at 'illicit material.'

Mr Waters said Evans when searching for 'pre-teens' had clicked on a related items button which 'mass downloaded' some 17,000 images but said Evans hadn't viewed each one.

Judge Christopher Llewellyn-Jones QC in sentencing Evans to 16 months imprisonment said: "Jason Lee Evans, frankly you disgust me.

"If you had committed these sort of offences yourself on a child you would be going to prison for a very long time. Frankly, I see little difference between a man who actually commit these offences and the man who looks at them because the man who looks at them is providing the outlet for the man who commits these offences."

Evans will be subject to a sexual harm prevention order for ten years and will be on the sex offender's register for the same period.