A man who possessed more than 13,000 indecent images and videos of children, and spent “six hours at a time fuelled with cocaine and alcohol” browsing the images online, has been jailed.
Kyle Ratcliffe, 27, of The Street in Capel St Mary, had previously admitted four counts of making an indecent image of children, and one count of possessing an extreme pornographic image.
At Ipswich Crown Court on Friday, Ratcliffe was sentenced to 12 months in prison for three counts, and three months in jail for possessing the extreme pornographic image, to be served concurrently.
He was also given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order designed to safeguard the public, which will last for a duration of 10 years.
During the police investigation, nine devices were seized, including a Samsung mobile phone, two Western Digital hard-drives, a Macbook Pro laptop and four SD cards, which contained the images and videos.
The court heard that Ratcliffe would “sit for nearly six hours at a time, fuelled with cocaine and alcohol,” browsing through the images for his own sexual gratification.
Judge Martyn Levett took into consideration Ratcliffe’s guilty plea at the earliest opportunity, and the remorse he expressed over his actions.
Judge Levett said: “This was an extremely large collection of images – 13,000 is by anyone’s definition a high amount.
“The images on the hard-drives and the four SD cards indicates to me they have been deliberately saved.
He added that downloading indecent images “encourages the making of more and more images of children,” and that “the harm that is caused can never really be quantified.”
Ratcliffe was also put on a list preventing him from working with children.
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