AN UNEMPLOYED man who was found with a huge collection of indecent images when police raided his home has been given a suspended jail sentence.

Andrew Florides, 31, of Thames Road, Billingham, had more than 11,000 indecent images of children stored in a computer tower.

Teesside Crown Court heard the tower and an external hard drive also contained a total of 713 movie clips.

Children in the videos ranged from age three to 17 and were depicted in sexual activities with adults.

Florides admitted making and possessing indecent images between October 2010 and January 2014 as a result of the police raid in January last year.

He had been bullied at school for being overweight and suffered from low self esteem and depression.

Florides came from a Greek Cypriot family and was said to have been brought up with strict morals and the offences - to which he had pleaded guilty to at the first opportunity - had shocked his entire family.

He had begun looking at pornographic images when he was 16 or 17 years old and his viewing had ebbed and flowed since then.

The court heard how he had been offered a job at an airport and was prepared to undertake a course aimed at addressing his sexual offending if he was spared jail.

Judge Tony Briggs discharged a court order barring identification of the defendant following representations from prosecutor Harry Hadfield and The Northern Echo.

The judge gave Florides, who had been seeking counselling because of his attraction to minors, an 18 month jail sentence, suspended for two years. He will have to sign the sex offenders register and will be subject to a sexual offences prevention order.

The computer items were ordered to be forfeited and destroyed.