A Chatham man has been jailed for three and a half years after admitting sexually abusing a girl and downloading child abuse images.

Trevor Wright told police he initially began searching for the images to track down paedophiles as a self-styled vigilante but as time went on he began stockpiling them for his own use.

Detectives from the Kent Police Child Exploitation Investigation Team raided Wright's home in Abinger Drive in April last year after receiving information he had been downloading indecent material online.

Images of child abuse, including Level 5 images, the most serious, were found on computer equipment at the address.

The 47-year-old was arrested and said he had become involved in an attempt to find paedophiles and send images out with viruses attached to the email to break their computers.

However, as his obsession increased, he became more and more interested in the images and began collecting them in earnest.

Wright then admitted to sexually assaulting a girl under the age of 13, along with taking indecent images of her.

On October 24, detectives charged Wright with two counts of taking indecent images of children, two counts of causing a child to engage in sexual activity, two counts of sexually assaulting a girl under the age of 13, four counts of possession of indecent images of children and six further counts of making indecent images of children.

Wright pleaded guilty to the offences at Maidstone Crown Court on February 24 and was jailed today for three and a half years. He was given a sexual offences prevention order for ten years.

Investigating officer, DC Jo-anne Gordon of the Kent Police Child Exploitation Investigation Team, said Wright's actions were "fuelled by looking at thousands of images of children suffering the most horrific of abuse".

She added: "I am pleased that we in the Child Exploitation Investigation Team have been able to bring his actions to justice, and would remind everyone that there is never an excuse for looking at this material, it merely serves to encourage further abuse and continue the suffering of the abused, knowing that others are taking pleasure from their torment."