A 22 year old pervert from Galleywood said to have been caught up in a "fantasy world" of porn was spared jail by one of Essex's top judges today.
Judge Anthony Goldstaub QC told Andrew Leigh, of Goshawk Drive, Galleywood : "You have admitted some disgusting offences of child pornography of the worst kind and I'm tempted to send you immediately to prison."
The judge had been told that as well as child porn the cache of pornography found at Leigh's home included material showing sex acts involving animals.
However, instead of an immediate jail sentence the judge imposed a two year jail sentence but suspended it for two years.
The court was told that when police raided Leigh's home they seized 1,223 extreme pornographic films and images.
Leigh pleaded guilty to eight offences of possessing "extreme" images, two of distributing images and four of downloading indecent images of children.
As he passed sentence Judge Goldstaub said : "There was no physical contact, you became hooked on this type of pornography in a way that you couldn't control or manage."
In addition to the suspended sentence he also fined Leigh £485 with £15 victim surcharge, ordered him to pay £500 costs and attend the internet sex offenders programme. He made an indefinite sex offenders prevention order and placed Leigh on the sex offenders register for ten years.
Leigh's counsel, Anne Pereira, told the court : "He co-operated with the police saying 'it's me' and handed over all the equipment involved. He was relieved having been frightened and concerned about what to do. He was caught in a fantasy world."
She added that since his arrest messages had appeared on Facebook and the family felt threatened and had moved out of their home for a time.
