A MAN who kept a collection of sick child abuse images was locked up after he told a probation officer "the children appeared willing".

Peter Oliver, 40, was snared by police officers who visited his caravan at a holiday park in Clacton in August 2020.

Across several devices, police found 34 indecent images of children at the most serious category A, 97 at category B and 127 at category C.

Officers also found 46 prohibited movies and images on a CD and USB stick, as well as 12.5g of amphetamine in the caravan.

Judge Mary Loram QC said Oliver had stored the images on electronic devices for around two years.

She told Chelmsford Crown Court images were found on a messaging application on a tablet device, adding: “It is clear you were a user of a group that was involved in the sharing of images.

“Your involvement in that, even if you didn’t actually share the images yourself, encouraged others to do so.”

The court heard some of the most serious images involved children being restrained and in distress.

Oliver, of London Road, Clacton, admitted three counts of making indecent images of children, one count of possessing prohibited images of children and possession of amphetamines.

Shanice Mahmud, mitigating, said Oliver "has the ability to recognise he has slipped into a very dark place".

She told the judge her client needs the support and help of the probation service and is "willing to undergo a process of rehabilitation".

“You create that market for those lives to be ruined,” the judge continued.

“For over two years you possessed those images, without caring or understanding what you were doing.

“All that really can be said for you by way of mitigation is that there were not a significant amount of images as these cases go.”

Judge Loram also took the court to the list of explanations doled out by Oliver to the author of a pre-sentence report when explaining his offending.

She said: “You put forward a number of reasons for your downloading of images of child abuse. You ‘were looking for images to draw’, that it was somehow linked to your use of amphetamines.

"I have not heard one thing that persuades me in any way that your amphetamine addiction in any way relates to your sexual interest in children.

“You put forward that you stumbled across the Kik [messaging] application, that you were searching for fake police items, echoing an interest in the story of a child who had been abducted by a fake police officer – simply borne out of curiosity.

“You also said this: ‘There are a lot worse people out there’.

“And another quite staggering comment – and to make clear, to the probation officer whose entire job is to assess your attitude – that ‘the children appeared willing’.

“I sense no real appreciation from you at all of concern that what you did was to encourage child abuse, that looking at children being raped was anything but something that you were sexually interested in.”

Oliver was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment and made the subject of a five year sexual harm prevention order.