A PAEDOPHILE amassed a collection of more than 30,000 pictures of children within two months of being freed from prison for identical offences.

Richard Neal - said to be in the grip of a disturbing addiction - is today back behind bars for the third time for sickening child sex crimes.

The 30-year-old loner, from Bishop Auckland, County Durham, was told by a judge: "You are a case as serious as I have encountered in my time."

Neal was jailed for five years at Teesside Crown Court after admitting making and possessing indecent images of children, and prohibited images.

The court heard yesterday how police found the pictures - some of toddlers and of babies just months old - on his mobile phone and memory card.

Neal was living in a bail hostel in South Bank, near Middlesbrough, after leaving prison when he was visited by detectives in October last year.

Prosecutor Christine Egerton told Judge Tony Briggs that some of the "vile" stills and movie clips showed children bound by their hands and legs.

The judge described them as "the hideous and disturbing sexual abuse of very young children" and added: "They have caused a lot of distress in their making."

He told Neal: "It is plain you are in the grip of a powerful addiction towards material of this nature and you are sexually attracted to young children.

"This is well beyond the usual gamut of cases I usually meet, and should act as a reminder that if you offend again the sentences will be longer."

Neal, formerly of James Street, Bishop Auckland, was jailed in 2009 for engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child over a computer webcam.

He was locked up again in 2013 for possessing indecent images of children, and was released in August - two months before police checked on him.

Graham Brown, mitigating, said about 3,500 of the 30,000 pictures were illegal, and admitted: "There is clearly a risk he will commit further acts of this type."

He added: "He came out and found himself without benefits . . . he was at a low ebb, and he went on to do that which is now before the court for sentence.

"This is a defendant who has remained solitary and isolated, and he has accessed the images for himself, he accepts, for his own gratification."