A CRADLEY Heath pervert built up a vile collection of over 120,000 indecent photographs and films of youngsters after becoming addicted to child pornography.

Judge John Warner sentenced Matthew Hunt to two years behind bars at Wolverhampton Crown Court.

Judge Warner said: "This was dreadful and appalling behaviour towards young children and I hope you are thoroughly ashamed at watching what you were watching."

"It got to the stage where you had to see more and more things to satisfy your addiction."

Mr John Evans prosecuting said Hunt, aged 28, operated a share system that enabled him to look at sickening indecent images owned by other like minded people and they had access to his files.

When police officers acting on information went to Hunt's home in Meadow Walk and he told them: "You will find what you are looking for."

Hunt said he had downloaded hundreds of thousands of images, his interest was in six to 12 year old's and he described how he fantasied about the photographs and films.

It was an "escape," he went on adding that he had thought about doing some of the things in the images but he was "too scared."

There were over 120,000 images and films with the likelihood of many more, said Mr Evans and they ranged from level one to level five - the most serious category..

Mr Gurdeep Garcha defending said Hunt accepted the images were "disgusting" and that "untold misery" had been caused to the children involved by the "continuous cycle of abuse."

He said: "He acknowledges he has deep seated problems. He is someone who is isolated socially. These images were a refuge for him and a sexual outlet."

Mr Garcha said: "He was downloading more images than he could possibly view and there was an element of relief when the police knocked on his front door."

Hunt admitted 10 charges of making indecent images of children and 10 of distributing the images and he was further told he must register as a Sex Offender for 10 years and made the subject of a lifelong Sexual Offenders Protection Order.