A GULF War veteran who stored thousands of indecent images of children on his computer has been jailed for 16 months.

IT expert and former Royal Navy rating Shaun Richardson downloaded the vile material from the internet for 12 years.

And when the 48-year-old was questioned told police he found girls aged nine to 12 attractive.

Colin Meeke, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court that police monitoring online file sharing networks found vile images on his computer available for distribution.

As a result officers raided his home in Rowan Drive, Royal Wootton Bassett, in December 2013 and seized his hardware.

When he was questioned he said he would download bulk files containing many indecent images of children.

"He said his preference was for girls aged nine to 12-years-of-age and that he would keep these images in a folder caller 'keep'," said Mr Meeke.

"He accepted in the interview that there would be younger children there. He knew the particular search terms used by people with an interest in this material."

When his computer was searched officers found more than 10,000 indecent images of children, almost all of under 13s.

A large number were of younger, preschool, children with the youngest being about two months old.

He was questioned again and he said he thought the website he was looking at was about adoption, which was not the case.

Mr Meeke said: "He disputed he said he found children of nine to 12 attractive: that is clearly what he did say in his first interview."

The computers showed almost 12 years of downloading the material from the internet which was then saved and stored.

Mr Meeke said that although some may have been available for download he was not charged with that offence.

Richardson, now of Axminster, Dorset, pleaded guilty to making and possessing indecent images of children as well as having 141 prohibited images of children.

Virginia Cornwall, defending, said a psychiatric report carried out on her client said he would be helped by a sex offenders' programme.

She said if he were jailed he would not serve long enough to get any benefit from any courses but could do them on the outside.

During his time in the Royal Navy she said he served in the first Gulf War and after leaving the services set himself up in IT.

Passing sentence Recorder Michael Vere-Hodge QC said: "What sets your case apart from others is the very large quantity of images you were found to be in possession of.

"There are times where the sentence has to be of a deterrent nature, to send out a message to people in your circumstances who are minded to store up images of this appalling nature.

"You must know, and the public must know, that you assist the traffic in wanting to view these images. The end of the traffic is a child who is being mercilessly abused.

"You may have strong mitigation but my public duty to mark these offences overwhelms that mitigation."

As well as jailing him for 16 months he imposed a sexual harm prevention order restricting Richardson's liberty for 10 years and told him he must register as a sex offender.