Description
A Cambridge University poetry professor who had more than 2,000 child abuse images - including one of a baby - has walked free from court.
Professor Simon Jarvis, 53, was found with the vile images on various computers and in online accounts when his city home and college room were raided by the National Crime Agency in September, but a judge said he posed a 'low risk' to children.
Of the almost 2,000 indecent images found, 45 were in the most serious Category A.
The 53-year-old was found with the vile images on various computers and in online accounts
Yahoo chat logs containing 'extremely graphic' child abuse fantasies and software allowing access to the Dark Web were also found on some of the four computers seized, the court heard.
Other images shows 'pubescent and pre-pubescent' girls as young as 10 being sexually abused, and one of a baby.
He also posed pictures at the lower category C on a page on the Tumblr microblogging website under a pseudonym, the court heard.
Dressed in a smart grey suit the Gorley Putt Professor of Poetry broke down in tears as he heard his crimes being recounted at Cambridge Crown Court.
Jarvis pleaded guilty to four charges of making and two of distributing indecent images of children, five charges of possessing prohibited images and one of possessing extreme pornography, at Friday's hearing.
Jarvis, 53, was found with the vile images on various computers and in online accounts when his city home and college room were raided
Sentencing him, Judge David Farrell QC said: 'You are an intelligent man, a professor of English literature at the University of Cambridge.
'As such, in my judgment, you must have know that by accessing and viewing indecent images of children you were indirectly encouraging the abuse of children.
'You were looking at these images for your own perverted sexual gratification.'