A former Rushmere St Andrew man who downloaded indecent images and movies of children has been given a suspended prison sentence.

When police officers went to Tobias Rapsey’s home with a search warrant in June last year he immediately told them that he had accessed indecent images of children and had traded them online, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Emma Nash, prosecuting, said police seized his laptop, mobile phone and a USB stick and when they were analysed they were found to contain 3,200 indecent images of children and 18 movies in the most serious level A category, 2,100 indecent images of children and seven movies in category B and 4,200 images in the lowest level C category.

The court heard that some of the images were duplicates and the number of unique category A images was, for example, 1,341.

Rapsey, 27, who was living in The Street, Rushmere admitted three offences of making indecent images of children over a period of eight months, distributing indecent images of children in the lowest level C category and possessing an extreme pornographic image.

He was given a 12 month prison sentence suspended for 24 months, a rehabilitation activity requirement of up to ten days, a 27 day internet sex offenders accredited programme requirement and a three month curfew from 8pm-6am.

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.

Sentencing him, Judge David Pugh said: “Some of the images involved very young children with some as young as one or two. You may have thought this is a victimless crime but it is clearly not. It is because of people like you that children are out through this terrible abuse.”

Steven Dyble, for Rapsey, said his client had no previous convictions and had co-operated with the police investigation into the offences.

He said Rapsey had shown genuine remorse and was keen to be rehabilitated.

He told the court that at the time of the offences Rapsey had been using cannabis and alcohol and there were also some underlying mental health concerns.

He said Rapsey had now moved to Harwich.