Anthony Larcombe thought he was sharing the disgusting material with a single mother of a young girl but in fact he was being ensnared by an undercover police officer.

Using a pseudonym, he revealed his distorted interest, saying “I’m in my 60s but it doesn’t stop me fantasising about under 12s”.

He then sent a series of videos and photographs, including a two-year-old girl being abused and wrote “baby is the best age to start, I’m absolutely convinced of it”.

Larcombe also claimed to have been in touch with a nine-year-old Russian girl who had sent him indecent images

The officer became suspicious about his identity due to facts he revealed about being in trouble previously.

In fact he had been arrested in 2015 at an airport after travelling to meet a woman to “play with her boys”.

He was later jailed in relation to that for four years for distributing indecent images and arranging or facilitating a child sex offence.

In relation to the latest offences, the 69-year-old former English teacher pleaded guilty to distributing more than 1,500 indecent images.

At Newcastle Crown Court, he was jailed for three years and four months with an extended licence period of a further six years and eight months

Judge Julie Clemitson told him: “These offences are rightly described as vile and abhorrent by your counsel. You expressed some distorted and abhorrent views about children.

“The images sent included babies and toddlers, some of whom were being subjected to rape and bestiality. Some showed the child crying or in distress. It makes it all the more alarming and difficult to understand why anyone would think any child was enjoying that encounter.

“You said babies were the best age to start and you expressed regret over the arrest of a woman who had created paedophilic images. You were involved with an online community of paedophiles who distribute and share images.

“You repeated some of your warped ideas about children to the probation officer and don’t appear to recognise the terrible psychological harm the children in those images suffer.

The harm can be extraordinarily grave, exacerbated by the knowledge paedophiles all around the world might be looking at the images of their abuse and that the images may stay out there indefinitely.”

Judge Clemitson said that Larcombe, of Calle Fabrica, Palma De Mallorca, believed the authorities in Spain, where he was living, were not monitoring him in the same way as in the UK, which she said needed to be rectified in future. He was arrested upon returning to the UK.

She added: “You demonstrated extremely dangerous beliefs and you have attempted to act on them before and you suggested (the undercover officer) might like to travel to Spain.