A LONER preoccupied with a sexual interest in children has been jailed for a total of three years and two months.

Steven Gowland gathered a vast collection of indecent pictures of children, mostly downloaded from the internet, but some pseudo-images created himself, said to be of a "disturbing" nature.

Durham Crown Court heard that using a split-screen, he super-imposed himself having sex with a life-sized rubber doll over which he superimposed images of children in ballet and ice-skating costumes.

Richard Bennett, prosecuting, said there were also many hours of footage taken by Gowland himself, from roadsides in his parked car, of children innocently playing.

Mr Bennett said such was the extent of some of the footage that it could almost be described as "surveillance".

He gave an example in which Gowland gives a "commentary", making lewd suggestions while covertly filming.

Police, acting on information, visited his home in Stanhope, Weardale, on May 25 last year and removed a large amount of computer equipment, CD roms and dvds.

He was arrested and admitted looking at adult pornography, but claimed he was not attracted to material featuring children or animals.

Mr Bennett told the court: "After a long pause, however, he said they may be some images of children which he looked at, 'because they were there'."

Lengthy examination of the images contained on the seized "media" revealed 5,196 indecent images of children, mostly stills, but some moving, including 400 in the most serious two brackets for such material.

He was re-interviewed and admitted having a sexual interest in children, but claimed to be surprised at the amount of images in his collection.

Gowland, 56, of Martin Street, admitted a total of 26 charges relating to the images and footage recovered from his computer equipment, at a hearing on December 9, since when he has been remanded in custody.

His barrister, Rachael Landin, described him as, "an introverted and isolated man".

But she said he now feels, "deep shame and embarrassment" at the depths to which he sank.

It began when he accessed "mainstream" pornography, but images featuring children sometimes "popped up", which he looked at, out of curiosity.

But she stressed none of the images subsequently collected or taken by Gowland were distributed.

Miss Landin added that Gowland will undergo a sexual offender treatment programme while serving his sentence.

Jailing him, Judge Christopher Prince told Gowland: "You've clearly been preoccupied with a sexual interest in children.

"Some of the material defies categorisation and is disturbing in nature."

Gowland is already subject of lifelong registration as a sex offender. Terms of a suitable sexual offences prevention order will be agreed at a later hearing.