Glyndwr Willis, also known as George Williams, amassed a huge collection of indecent and prohibited images of children over years.

Liverpool Crown Court heard Williams continued to search for indecent images even though he knew police were investigating him and despite the fact he was subject to a court order aimed at stopping him from accessing images showing the sexual abuse of children.

The 72 year old told probation officers he had an addiction to images showing child sexual abuse before a judge jailed him this morning.

Nardeen Nemat, prosecuting, said Willis admitted to police he began accessing images of child abuse on the internet in 2011 – three years after he was convicted for possession of indecent images.

She said images could not be traced back to that date but that digital records from a computer recovered from his house provided evidence of him downloading images from at least March 2016.

At that time he was still subject to a sexual harm prevention order imposed on him after the 2008 conviction and that order compelled him to tell the police if he had any devices capable of recording or storing images – but he did not do so.

Williams flagrantly disregarded the order until it expired and then continued to amass a huge collection of images.

More than 4,000 were deemed to fall within Category A, the most serious, while just under 4,000 were within Category B and almost 52,000 fell within Category C.

Williams also had more 13,000 “prohibited” images, which Ms Nemat confirmed were computer-generated and some of which were cartoons.

Police found the images after a tip off and numerous raids on Williams’ New Ferry home.

In interviews with officers he admitted he had downloaded them.

He later pleaded guilty to making and possessing indecent images and prohibited images of children as well as breaching his sexual harm prevention order

Judge Anil Murray said Williams’ comments to probation officers made clear he did not understand the damage his actions caused for children in the videos and pictures he downloaded. He said: “You accept you are sexually attracted to children.

However, it is clear from that [pre sentence] report that you do not appreciate the seriousness of your actions or the harm that they have caused.”