A “SELF-made man” who led a hitherto “blameless” life has been jailed for viewing more than 1,000 indecent images of children aged as young as five.

Daniel Wakefield had admitted 11 counts of making and two of possessing pictures and movies showing children being sexually abused, with 12 images and 34 movies in the most serious category.

Prosecutor Simon Jones told Bournemouth Crown Court that the 51-year-old was arrested in July last year by police following a tip-off from Interpol, which was investigating a file-sharing site.

“When officers attended the defendant said he was not surprised they were there as he had accessed that type of indecent material in the past,” he said.

Jailing Wakefield for eight months, Judge John Harrow said: “This is an evil and disgusting trade and people like you help to fund it.”

He said it was a “monumental fall from grace” for the defendant, a “self-made man” who had led a “blameless” life.

“It may be easy for people like you to put it out of your mind as it is so remote, it may be children of a different culture thousands of miles away,” he said.

“You only thought of securing your sexual gratification, and people who do that have to pay the price.”

Mitigating for Wakefield, of Queen’s Park Avenue, Bourne-mouth, Richard Tutt said his client had admitted his offence to police immediately, describing it as a “phase” which he regretted.

“He had issues towards pornography generally and his attitudes towards sexual matters,” said Mr Tutt.

“It is probably fair to say he had become de-sensitised.

“He said when he viewed the images they made him uncomfortable. He did realise it was not right.”

Mr Tutt said Wakefield, who trained as an apprentice with British Aerospace and has been in constant employment since, had voluntarily sought out a self-help group in the United States and psychotherapy sessions to improve his “relationships with other people”.

As well as the jail term, Judge Harrow imposed a Sexual Offences Prevention Order on Wakefield with various conditions regarding his use of electronic equipment, and ordered him to sign the register for 10 years.