A FORMER swimming instructor’s previous good character helped to spare him an immediate prison sentence over his collection of thousands of indecent images of children.

Durham Crown Court heard Geoffrey Hunter compiled them over ten years, deleting some, but storing others to enable them to be retrieved and viewed.

Police, acting on information received, visited Hunter’s home in Seaham, in November last year, when they removed computer equipment and phones.

In total there were 5,061 images and 22 moving videos in the least serious category, four and five, respectively in the second most severe, but in the most serious there were five videos containing adults involved in sexual activity with children.

Ian West, prosecuting, said, despite the relatively low number of moving images, the duration was of more than three hours.

He said there appeared to have been the use of paedophilic search terms to seek out the material.

Mr West said the defendant has been a swimming instructor, and has not offended by way of “contact” offences.

Hunter told police he was not interested in sexual images of children and could offer no explanation why he downloaded them, but he claimed some were among many photographs he sought in ‘zip files’.

But, the 63-year-old defendant, of Grant’s Crescent, admitted three counts of making indecent images of children at a previous court appearance.

Kieran O’Neill, for Hunter, said he is of previous good character, and the loss of his good name was the biggest punishment possible to the father and grandfather.

Judge Jonathan Carroll told Hunter: “The issue with this kind of offending is that people looking at computer images assume they are not personally contributing to the sexual abuse of children.

“They are wrong about that. They are directly taking part by accessing these images and, in seeking them out, positively encouraging the making of more of them.”

But he added: “Where there’s been no previous offences, it is in society’s interests to manage issues and to learn how to safeguard himself and others.

“Somebody with no previous convictions gets only one chance.”

He imposed a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, during which Hunter must attend 30 rehabilitation activity days to address his behaviour.

Hunter was also made subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and must register as a sex offender, both for ten years.