A MAN who downloaded hundreds of child abuse images from the Internet has been jailed for 12 months.

Lee Hollamby was working as a postman when he trawled websites for obscene pictures of young boys.

Maidstone Crown Court heard how the 28-year-old’s dark secret was revealed when the serious crime unit questioned him about another matter.

His computer was seized and officers later broke into his home at Gatehouse Farm, Hunton Road, Hunton, near Maidstone, while he was absent and carried out a search.

Jane Scotchmer, prosecuting, said Hollamby eventually admitted he had searched for such material.

A total of 2,512 obscene images were found. Most were at the lowest level, one, with 219 at level four and one at five, the highest level. There were also eight video clips.

Hollamby told police he started to look at them out of curiosity and it became out of control. He would delete images and replace them with new ones.

He added that he had been on a sex offenders’ rehabilitation course and now felt remorse and realised victims were involved.

Kenneth Middleton, defending, said Hollamby now had huge victim empathy. “He felt very ashamed that he had contributed to the child porn industry,” he said.

Hollamby, who admitted making indecent images of children, resigned from his postman’s job and had been offered work as a salesman.

Judge Charles MacDonald, QC, said it was not a huge number of images, but nor was it a small number. This cannot be dealt with by a fine or community order,” he said. “It has to be immediate custody.”

Hollamby was banned from working with children and will remain on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.