A pervert going through a sex change says he downloaded 14,000 child abuse images to find out what it is like to grow up as a girl.

Graham Newley has legally changed his name to Gillian Rebecca and lived as a woman since 2000.

His lawyer said the 52-year-old “had got to the point of pre-operative assessment for full transgender surgery to change her from a male to a female”.

Newley was arrested after more than 14,000 images were found on a laptop at his home in Darnley Road, Strood, last October.

Jo Cope, prosecuting, said Newley had been renting a room and the landlord’s teenage daughter saw something relating to indecent images on the computer.

The landlord asked to borrow the laptop and when he saw the pictures he called the police.

Miss Cope said: “She [Newley] said she looked at the images on Google as she wanted to know what it would be like to be a female child as she missed out.

“She said she had been doing it for about four years and it was only in the last four months she had intentionally looked for indecent images. She said she did not do it for sexual gratification but out of curiosity.”

Newley, now of Waltham Forest, East London, admitted 14 charges of possessing indecent photographs of children at Maidstone Crown Court.

Lynn Griffin, defending, said Newley’s interest was in children between the ages of 11 and 13.