A PAEDOPHILE was caught with 1,330 indecent images of children after becoming addicted to legal pornography and “going off the rails”, using cocaine and other Class A drugs.

Tom Roe, 23, was arrested after police stopped him for an unrelated matter, but found the haul of vile indecent images on his phone.

Basildon Crown Court heard Roe, of Chestnut Cove, Benfleet, also had multiple “extreme porn” images and had spoken to online accounts that he believed were young girls.

He avoided jail after the judge was told his life had spiralled out of control due to his drug addiction.

Prosecuting, Kathryn Hirst said: “Police carried out a more extensive search of his phone and found 182 Category A images, 263 Category B images and 886 Category C images.

“There were also two images of extreme porn found too. It also became apparent he was using a messenger applications and two conversations were found one with a person reporting to be an 11-yearold girl and another identifying as a girl of ten or 11 years old.”

Mitigating, Christopher Martin told the court Roe comes from a good family background and is welleducated.

He said: “At 18 he started using cocaine regularly until this January and he spiralled out of control.

“He was a single man and was lonely and became addicted to legal pornography and when he was first sent incident images he was intrigued and started to become sexually interested in them.

“He tried to take his own life and took an overdose.”

Sentencing, Judge Samantha Leigh said: “You went off the rails and I am sure when your parents realised they got hold of it. It was so bad you were almost sectioned.”

He admitted three counts of making an indecent photograph of a child and three counts of distributing an indecent photograph of a child.

He also admitted possession of extreme pornographic images, attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child, attempting to cause a child age 13 to 15 to watch or look at an image of sexual activity and attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child.

He was handed a two-year suspended sentence, ordered to complete the horizon programme, 60 days of rehabilitation activity requirement, and was put on the sex offenders’ register for ten years. A sexual harm prevention order was made for 10 years.