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A registered sex offender who used a neighbour's WiFi signal to download vile images of child sexual abuse has been jailed.
Terence Standage, of Charlton Lane in Maidstone, secretly accessed thousands of indecent images and videos using next door's web connection for more than six years.
Police investigating suspicious online activity first went to an address in Charlton Lane in January 2019 and the occupier revealed Standage had been known to piggyback onto their WiFi.
This led to officers executing a search warrant at the home of 61-year-old Standage, where devices including a memory stick and hard drive were seized for forensic examination.
Almost 12,000 illegal images and videos of children being abused were discovered, of which more than 300 were classed in the most serious category.
Further offences were identified, including evidence of upskirting offences involving a number of unknown women on a train and a bus.
Standage was subsequently charged with four counts of making indecent images of a child and three counts of outraging public decency.
"The material Standage deliberately sought and downloaded will have resulted from real children suffering appalling abuse..."
He was also recalled to prison having breached licence terms imposed from previous sex offences.
After he pleaded guilty at Maidstone Crown Court at an earlier hearing, on Wednesday, May 5, Standage was sentenced to two years and four months' imprisonment. He was also made subject to the terms of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
DS Dave Shipley, of the paedophile online investigation team, said: "Standage has a lengthy history of offending and despite previous convictions has made sustained and extensive efforts to obtain and view abhorrent material on the internet involving the sexual abuse of children.
"His calculated use of someone else’s WiFi has demonstrated his determination to access illegal images undetected.
"Make no mistake, the material Standage deliberately sought and downloaded will have resulted from real children suffering appalling abuse. People like him have little understanding of the gravity of their actions, and must face the consequences."
