Black Country pensioner found with 93,000 images of children

Peter Rudge had become 'addicted' to the pornography, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

Police swooped on his home after a tip-off on August 23 last year and took away two laptops, electrical equipment, a memory stick and several DVDs, revealed Mr Howard Searle, prosecuting.

When the haul was analysed offices discovered a total of 92,844 moving and still images, 2,335 of which were ruled to be in the worst category.

They featured children aged between four and 16.

About half were accessible while the rest had been deleted and could only be recovered with specialist police equipment.

Rudge had used the 'dark web' to get images and had downloaded some of those onto DVDs to create his own 'library,' it was said.

Mr Simon Rippon, defending, said Rudge had been a well-respected senior lab researcher who was now willing to 'challenge' his recent behaviour which was at variance with the man his family and friends knew.

He had tried to wean himself off the addiction, he added.

Rudge from Hillary Avenue, Wednesbury pleaded guilty to three charges of making indecent images of children and one of possessing a prohibited image of a child.

The offences were committed over a two-year period up to August last year.