A partially-sighted Colchester man who downloaded more than 140,000 indecent images of children, including babies, has been given a suspended prison sentence.

Sentencing 40-year-old Robin Pawsey, Judge David Pugh said: “The age of the children in many of these images was under 12 months. You can imagine the pain and the distress these young children have undergone to satisfy your pornographic illegal acts.”

He said, in addition to the indecent images, Pawsey had also admitted an offence of attempted sexual communication with a person he believed to be a 15-year-old girl.

“The reason that this offence is charged as an attempt is because she hasn’t been identified and therefore the age of that individual can’t be ascertained,” said the judge.

He said that ordinarily people who attempted to communicate with children in this way should expect an immediate prison sentence.

However, he said he felt able to pass a suspended sentence because Pawsey hadn’t reoffended in the last three years and an immediate prison sentence would have a greater impact on him than most defendants because of his health problems.

Pawsey, of Victoria Chase, Colchester, admitted three offences of making indecent images of children, possessing prohibited images of children and possession of extreme pornography.

Ipswich Crown Court court heard that Pawsey had 16,150 indecent images of children in the most serious level A category, 17,105 in category B and 111,504 in category C.

He also had 8,735 prohibited images of children in his possession and 28,465 extreme pornographic images.

The offences were committed between October 2016 and October 2018.

He also admitted attempted sexual communication with a child in 2017.

He was given a 24-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, a 40-day rehabilitation activity requirement and a four-month electronically monitored curfew between 7pm and 7am.

He was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for ten years and ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for the same period.

Steven Dyble, for Pawsey, said his client had no previous convictions and hadn’t reoffended since the offences came to light three years ago.

He said the probation service felt there was a reasonable prospect of rehabilitation and he urged the court not to pass an immediate prison sentence.

He said that, as a result of the offences, Pawsey’s wife had asked him to leave and he hadn’t had any contact with his child.