Porn 'addict' with 130,000 indecent images of children avoids jail

The photos and movies, some showing depraved scenes of sex and sadism, were discovered during a raid on the Stafford home of Robert Bagdi.

Judge Mark Eades told the 49-year-old he had a 'dark secret'.

Stafford Crown Court heard how Bagdi stored the images on a desktop computer and two laptops.

Mr Neil Ahuja, prosecuting, said there was a range of ages of children being abused, from pre-pubescent upwards. His browsing history revealed he had been deliberately scouring the internet for child pornography, with search terms including '12-year-old girls'.

Bagdi, of Sandon Road, admitted five charges of making indecent images of children involving a total of 127,379 still photos and 40 films.

The court heard that the downloads covered a period between November 2012 and January last year. A search warrant was executed on his home on January 25, 2014.

At court, Bagdi was handed a three-year community order and told to undergo a sex offender treatment programme as an alternative to an eight-month prison sentence.

Judge Mark Eades told him: "You have a dark secret and you fulfil it in private at home where no-one else can see.

"You think it's a private affair, but it isn't, it involves young girls being abused.

"That's the problem with this sort of offending, it leads to all sorts of unpleasant and nasty crimes.

"You are the end user of an industry where hundreds of thousands of these pictures are provided on the internet for people like you.

"Just think of the scale of what you had on your computer.

"You are addicted to internet porn and young children.

"You are beginning to face up to your problem but there is still some way to go."

Along with the community order, Bagdi was also ordered to pay £535 costs and £60 victim surcharge.