A PERVERT handed himself in after a fake Russian policeman demanded $5,000 in a bizarre blackmail plot.

'Vladimir' emailed James Ward demanding the money in bitcoins after he downloaded images of child abuse and other sick sex photographs from a website.

Ward replied "hard luck" then walked into his local police station and became "his own informant", prosecutor Paul Newcombe told Teeside Crown Court.

The 64-year-old, from Stapleton, near Darlington, told detectives he had taken an interest in indecent images of children "later in life" and had been searching for it for two to three years.

He was given bail, but quickly replaced his confiscated computers and started downloading filth from the internet again almost immediately.

After being arrested the second time in December, he said he needed help, admitted he was an addict, but claimed he did not know watching people having sex with animals was illegal.

Ward admitted possessing a total of 403 extreme pornographic images, two indecent images of children, and 18 prohibited images, which are cartoons of youngsters.

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, passed a 14-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, and ordered to take part in a sex offender treatment programme as part of a rehabilitation activity requirement.

The judge also imposed an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order which will limit Ward's internet and computer use, because he said "he has been addicted to pornography all of his life, and he seeks to minimise the impact of what he is watching".

He told the pervert: "You do not see anything wrong in that which you are looking at. You do not understand why watching extreme pornography can be an offence.

"Children are forced to carry out acts with adults so that people like you watch them and get gratification. Little children, aged five. That's the harm.

"This is not a victimless crime. It is very much a crime which has victims - children, and vulnerable women who are forced to carry out degrading acts with animals.

"That is why it is an offence, and that is why I'm troubled that you don't think that way. If you do this again, you will be locked up, however old you are."

Amrit Jandoo, mitigating, told the court: "He is very ashamed to be here for these offences."