Police executing a search warrant at an address in Adisham found over 18,000 indecent images of children.

They arrested Daniel Isden, 27, who was jailed for four months at Canterbury Crown Court after admitting 11 offences relating to the possessing or making of indecent images of children.

When officers told Isden they had a warrant to look for indecent images and would they find any on his computer he said yes.

In total 18,369 images were retrieved, the majority of which were at the least serious level one but 36 images were at the gravest level five resulting in an immediate jail term.

Edward Connell, prosecuting, said police went to Isden’s home on March 4 last year and he made full admissions in subsequent interview. He said he’d been looking at such images since 2000 but the charges covered a period from 2005 to 2008.

He said he looked at websites then followed links to various sites that would allow him to download the images which he found sexually arousing.

Deborah Charles, for Isden, said a probation report described Isden as socially isolated and lacking in appropriate adult interaction.

He admitted to the probation officer he had been sexually attracted to children for some years and liked looking at 14 to 16 year olds. He didn’t look at such material when in a long term relationship.

The majority of the images were at level one and Miss Charles submitted the level five images were not the worse the court had seen. Isden realised he had a problem and had expressed regret and was motivated to address his behaviour.

He recognised the children in the images had been abused and felt horrible after what he’d done, she said. Isden didn’t have a wide social network and that led him into this sort of addiction which got worse as he got older.

Miss Charles conceded Isden had crossed the custody threshold but said he was ashamed and submitted that may go a long way to preventing him from looking at such material in the future.

Jailing Isden, Judge Adele Williams gave him maximum credit for his pleas and said were it not for the level five photographs, she could acceed to the submissions in the pre-sentence report but those images had gone beyond what could be dealt with by a non-custodial sentence

“The entire mischief of crimes like these there are real children are being really abused in these images and people such as you who access these sites make it almost certain that these sites will continue to proliferate and the traffic in this truely wicked trade will continue,” said Judge Williams.

Isden will be on the sex offenders register for seven years and subject of a sex offences prevention order for five years.

• For more news from Canterbury, Whitstable, Herne Bay and Faversham visit kentishgazette.co.uk >>>