A MAN who was found in possession of 8,000 indecent images of young children has been jailed for six months.

Huan-Hsin Yu, 33, had a library of pictures collated over five years on his computer, some of which had been copied onto CDs and floppy discs.

One video clip was of a child of five years old being abused, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Harry Hadfield, prosecuting, said police had raided Yu's address in Westbury Street, Thornaby, near Stockton, on August 27.

They found indecent material contained on two computer hard drives as well as a collection of CDs, audio cassettes and videos.

Mr Hadfield said that Yu was arrested and interviewed and admitted he had downloaded the pictures from his computer, over a period going back to 1998 and that he copied some onto CDs.

The operation which trapped Yu came as a result of inquiries by the Metropolitan Police which carried out the raid.

He admitted 29 offences of making indecent photos of children.

Nigel Soppitt, representing Yu, said he was a loner who had developed an unhealthy fixation with such material.

He was now "deeply ashamed" of his actions.

Mr Soppitt added that Yu was a hard-working man and a second generation immigrant who was now having to look after his elderly parents who were ill.

He was an "end user" of the images and there was no suggestion that he was involved in distributing or swapping them with other people.

Judge Michael Taylor said that only a very limited number of the 8,000 images were at the most serious end of the scale.

But he added: "The children involved were of a very tender age. The courts have got to stamp out this sort of behaviour.

"Most of the public think that some of the sentences they see for people involved in this sort of thing are too lenient.

"In your case it is just not possible to avoid custody."

As well as the six month jail sentence, Yu had to register on the sex offenders list for a period of ten years.