A MAN caught with thousands of indecent images of children walked free from court after a judge heard he too was the victim of abuse years ago.

Nicholas Webley was said to have first looked at the shocking photos online because he believed he may have featured in some of them.

But his fascination led him to amass a collection of almost 8,000 and make nearly 60,000 requests to view them.

The 34-year-old told police after his arrest at his home in Redcar, east Cleveland, two years ago: "It was me."

He said: "I was abused as a kid. It is not something I would ever do. It is something I just look at. It helps me deal with what happened."

Judge Howard Crowson, sitting at Teesside Crown Court, initially said: "I can't credit his motivation being as innocent as he claims.

"I consider his account a pretence. I find it hard to believe as there was distribution, a high number of them are girls and some are babies."

After reading a psychiatric report and letters, the judge accepted there may have been a bizarre rather than perverted interest at first.

Webley's lawyer, Rachel Dyson, told Judge Crowson that he is still haunted by his childhood trauma, suffering flashbacks and nightmares.

She said he has trouble sleeping, rarely leaves the house, suffers from anxiety and paranoia, and is effectively acted for by his mother.

"Mr Webley would say that he initially started looking at these images because he had even told there were images of him," added Miss Dyson.

"But it is right that after some time, he was drawn to such images. There has been no repeat since, and he is considered a low risk."

Webley, of Ascot Road, Redcar, admitted distributing and making indecent images, possessing prohibited photos and extreme pornography.

Judge Crowson gave him a three-year community order with supervision and ordered him to go on the sex offender treatment programme.

The court heard how 7,940 stills and movies were found on a storage device and Webley's encrypted lap-top computer in November 2013.

The distribution charge relates to file-sharing software he had on the Toshiba which was open to the public, said prosecutor Harry Hadfield.

Judge Crowson told Webley, who sobbed in the dock throughout the hearing today (Monday, September 14): "We see far too much of this type of offending."