Roy Neilson 68

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A paedophile who downloaded more than 14,000 images of kids being sexually abused was caught with a manual detailing how to rape children.

Roy Neilson collected a trove of images on his laptop showing children as young as two being subjected to horrendous abuse. The 66-year-old, from Wirral, later said he had downloaded the images out of interest but had later developed an obsession with child abuse.

Derek Jones, prosecuting, said police traced Neilsons IP address from a tip off about indecent images being downloaded to a computer. They later seized an HP laptop from his Moreton home and recovered 14,670 indecent images, including 1,296 which fell into the most serious Category A.

Liverpool Crown Court heard a number of the images showed children clearly in distress or pain. In addition, Neilson had also downloaded parts of a manual on how to rape children.

Mr Jones said: It seems he had visited a Japanese pornographic website for the guide and bookmarked the page so he could return to it. He said the document contained an image of a child being raped and provided instructions for potential sexual abusers.

Mr Jones said: It is quite a shocking document. Bernice Campbell, defending, said there was little apart from Neilsons guilty plea that could be used as mitigation in his case.

She said Neilson had downloaded the disgusting pictures first out of curiosity but had then become addicted to looking at photos of child sexual abuse and was shocked by the number of photos recovered by police. Referring to the paedophile manual, Ms Campbell said Neilson had looked at it out of interest as opposed to having an intention to commit physical abuse against a child.

Appealing to the judge not to send him to prison, Ms Campbell referred to a pre sentence report which said he could be rehabilitated. She also pointed to the fact that he had taken no steps to cover up his offending and said that if he were to go to prison he would likely be exposed to more serious offenders who could impede any progress addressing his behaviour

Judge Stuart Driver QC said the amount of images, the age of the children and the clear distress of many of the victims in the images meant only immediate custody was appropriate for Neilson. Referring to the paedophile manual, he said: The court see many cases of indecent images but that is an unusual and most unpleasant feature of this case."

Neilson, of Fairmead Road, Morton, was jailed for 12 months.