PAEDOPHILES who download images of children being abused have been warned: “Police will track you down.”

Detective Sergeant Sue Bellamy has spoken out after IT specialist Barry Harkcom, of Library Road in Parkstone, downloaded a “truly alarming” 20 million images.

Harkcom claimed he had never viewed the images, collected over 16 years, and simply enjoyed cataloguing and filing them.

However, this week a judge said the 56-year-old’s defence “offends common sense”, and the defendant was sentenced to two years and one month in prison.

Now DS Bellamy, who works in Dorset Police’s Paedophile Online Investigation Team (POLIT), said anyone who looks at photos of children being sexually assaulted will be brought to justice.

“We received intelligence that Barry Harkcom had downloaded thousands of indecent images,” she said.

“This was an incredibly lengthy investigation due to the sheer amount of material that Harkcom had stored on his devices and we uncovered a truly alarming amount of images and videos of child abuse.

“I hope this case will serve as a warning to anyone involved in downloading or producing indecent images of children. Dorset Police will proactively track you down, we will arrest you and you will be brought to justice.

“Safeguarding children from serious harm is a priority for Dorset Police and we would urge anyone with information about offences involving children to contact us.”

Harkcom, who previously worked at Credit Plus in Fleetsbridge, was arrested after police raided his home last April.

He was in bed at the time, but lunged at his laptop in a bid to turn it off before it could be seized by police.

The court heard that Harkcom’s knowledge of computers was so extensive that police would have been unable to see what he had been viewing if he had managed to switch it off.

He later told officers their investigation would have been “screwed” if he’d made it to the laptop first.

Harkcom admitted three counts of making indecent images of children and one count of possession of extreme pornography.