A JUDGE admitted he expects a public outcry after jailing a man, who kept indecent images of children, for only two years yesterday.

The Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Peter Fox, QC, told Teesside Crown Court that the distressed cries of children as young as 18 months were on the video soundtracks.

He told Gary Richardson, who had 13,539 indecent images of children, that they showed "the worst possible depravity". They included three-year-old girls tied-up and wearing studded collars being raped on film, said Shaun Dodds, prosecuting.

Richardson, 30, who was arrested after a tip-off to the National Crime Squad, confessed that he was addicted to child porn, which he swapped through chat rooms.

He told police: "It is a pity that I was not discovered earlier."

Judge Fox was shown 16 of the videos and still photographs privately in his chambers with the prosecution and defence lawyers.

The judge told Richardson: "A number of them were children of the most tender of ages being subjected to such appalling sexual torture.

"Their cries of distress could be heard, as no doubt you heard them when you downloaded these images."

The guideline sentence from the Court of Appeal was two years and three months after a trial, said Judge Fox. Richardson earned a reduction for pleading guilty.

Stephen Ashurst, mitigating, said Richardson had asked his parents and family not to attend the case because of the disgrace.

He said: "He told the police that it started effectively as a teenager taking interest in adult pornographic material, and he was unable to break the addiction.

"He would use the computer when his girlfriend and other members of the family were out of the house.

"He told the police 'I came away feeling filthy and deciding that I would have to get rid of the material and that I was not going back on to it again. But a few days later I was back on it again'."

Judge Fox jailed Richardson for two years saying: "I don't know what people will think of that, I am simply obeying the law as you should have done."

Richardson, of Shaftesbury Road, Teesville, near Middlesbrough, was also ordered to register as a sex offender for ten years and he will be on supervision for ten years after his release.

He pleaded guilty to 17 charges of possessing indecent photographs of children between January and December last year.