A TAX expert who traded in the most perverted images of babies and toddlers ever seized in Britain has been jailed for three years.

Duncan Rusk, 38, signed up to an Internet club, based in York, which specialised in pornographic images of children under five and gathered 30,000 images on his home computer.

Fiona Horlick, prosecuting at Southwark Crown Court, London, said: "These were the most perverted images ever seen by the National Hi-tec Crime Squad."

The court heard they included sexual abuse of babies and young children as well as bondage and torture.

The club served at least 9,500 Internet paedophiles across the world from a central computer based in York.

Nicholas Medcroft, mitigating, said members of the club had to upload images to be able to download other images.

The club's ringleader, David Lutz Ward, of Merton Court, York, was jailed for 19 years at York Crown Court last Friday for rape, and making and distributing indecent images.

Officers analysed Ward's computer and used the results to track down club members.

Rusk, of Russell Court, Surrey, pleaded guilty to 17 counts of distributing indecent photographs of young children, 18 of making indecent images of young children and one of possessing indecent photographs of children.

Rusk was ordered to sign on the sex offenders' register for life.