Jailed Wednesbury pensioner's 93k child porn image library

Peter Rudge had become 'addicted' to the pornography, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

Police swooped on his home after a tip off on August 23 last year and took away two lap tops, electrical equipment, a memory stick and several DVDs, revealed Mr Howard Searle, prosecuting.

When the haul was analysed offices discovered a total of 92,844 moving and still images, 2,335 of which were ruled to be in the worst category. They featured children aged between four and 16.

About half were accessible while the rest had been deleted and could only be recovered with specialist equipment used by the police.

Rudge had used the 'dark web' to get images and had downloaded some of those onto DVDs to create his own 'library,' it was said.

Mr Searle continued: "He told police he had some form of addiction that needed treatment and accepted that part of this was his need to have a collection of the images. There is no suggestion he tried to contact children or anything like that."

Mr Simon Rippon, defending, said Rudge had been a well respected senior lab researcher who was now willing to 'challenge' his recent behaviour which was at variance with the man his family and friends knew.

"He had a collection of images and it became a compulsion, leading to a vast number of images being downloaded," maintained the lawyer.

"He tried to stop and wiped his computers, which is why a large number were not accessible, but without help this was difficult to maintain and he returned to his compulsion. He tried to wean himself away from it but was unable to do so."

Mr Rippon continued: "He was retired with little else to do and a curiosity became a compulsion." He said the defendant would have a better chance to overcome the addiction if he was not locked up but given treatment.

Rudge from Hillary Avenue, Wednesbury pleaded guilty to three charges of making indecent images of children and one of possessing a prohibited image of a child. The offences were committed over a two year period up to August last year.

He was sent to prison by Recorder Stephen Thomas who told him: "This is a serious matter because of the large number of images you had in your possession. On top of that you had taken matters further and actually downloaded some onto DVDs to create what amounted to your own library."