School IT worker stashed 62,000 child porn pictures

A SECONDARY school IT worker from North Yorkshire has been jailed for nearly three years after more than 62,000 child porn images were discovered on a hub of computers.

Oliver Corbett, who worked as a support assistant at St Aidan's School in Harrogate, was given a 32-month sentence after admitting 22 charges.

His library of porn contained many images at level five, the strongest level, even involving children as young as three - and the 25-year-old was also found to be sharing the images with other users.

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Before his arrest Corbett had worked as an IT support operative the school and had previously worked at a school in Boroughbridge, North Yorks.

It was an investigation by the Metropolitan Police that spotted the suspect traffic from his computer and they managed to track his address through his internet service provider.

North Yorkshire Police then carried on the chase, arresting him after raiding his home in Dishforth, and discovering over 41 computers and hard-drives in Corbett's room which held the biggest collection of indecent images ever found by the force.

Not long after his arrest in September last year, the enormity of his crimes seemed to have crept up on Corbett and York Crown Court heard today that he absconded, even sleeping in his car for about a month, before he was finally discovered.

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The defendant, who was described in court as an isolated individual, was so ill when he was found that he had to be resuscitated by medical staff and had been contemplating suicide.

Passing sentence Recorder Euan Duff described the haul as a "huge number of images" and told Corbett that the serious nature of the offences would "inevitably incur a custodial sentence".

"These are not victimless offences, these are real children being photographed and video recorded and being sexually abused, " said Recorder Duff.

Steven Crossley, mitigating, told the court that his client left after the "awfulness of his offences had caught up with him".

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Mr Crossley added: "He told the probation officers he was sickened by what he had done."

Steven Ostler, prosecuting, told the court that the computers and servers that stored all the images were left running even while Corbett went to work.

Mr Ostler added " It was described as the largest collection of indecent images found by North Yorkshire Police."

The 22 charges covered a total of 62,779 images, including videos and seven images found on a digital camera.

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In addition to the 32-month sentence, of which he will serve half, Corbett was made subject to a Sexual Offences Prevention order for six years and must sign the Sex Offenders Register indefinitely. He is also disqualified form working with children.