A 63-YEAR-OLD Chester man has been jailed after police uncovered more than 77,000 indecent images of children at his address.

Paul Baumanis, of High Street, Saltney, pleaded guilty at the first opportunity to downloading indecent images, which included 218 videos at category A – the worst kind of child sex abuse.

Judge Steven Everett sentenced Baumanis to 16 months in prison at Chester Crown Court on Friday, January 18.

Prosecuting, Chris Hopkins said police received information about Baumanis's internet usage and carried out a warrant at his address where items including three hard drives were seized.

Police investigated and discovered 66 images and 218 videos at category A, which included children as young as eight being sexually abused.

There were 149 images and 202 videos at category B, while there were 76,797 images including 511 videos at category C.

In addition, there were four images where an underage girl's head had been superimposed on to a different, naked underage girl's body.

Also stored were extreme pornographic images of people performing sex acts with animals.

Baumanis, of previous good character, had made full admissions to the offences when interviewed.

He also admitted that on two occasions he took photos up females' skirts, once around Chester and once after a village concert he had been involved in.

Defending, Peter Barnett said Baumanis had never been before the court before and the collection of images was the result of "an addictive personality".

Baumanis had been married twice but the second marriage had dissolved as a result of the charges. He now lived in rented accommodation and had given up his previous employment.

He did not blame anyone but himself and was taking steps to improve his situation by seeing a psychotherapist and completing an online course with the Lucy Faithfull Foundation.

Judge Everett said Baumanis had an "astonishing" number of child sex images.

He added: "The indecent images play a big part in your life; it has affected your family relationships.

"You have encouraged the terrible acts of sexual abuse of children. We see the children in category A have suffered huge acts of sexual abuse. We don't even know if they remained alive afterwards.

"Without people like you who download them through the Dark Web then there would not be the encouragement for these people to spread such material across the net.

"That is why offences of this nature are regarded so seriously."

Baumanis was jailed for 16 months and made the subject of a 10-year sexual harm prevention order, and must sign the sex offenders register for 10 years.

He was also barred from working with children, while the devices he used to download indecent images were to be seized and destroyed.

Following his sentencing, Detective Constable Viv Wilson, of Cheshire Constabulary’s Paedophile and Cyber Investigation Team, said: “Our investigation into Baumanis’ online activity showed him to be a professional paedophile who used the internet and social media to sexually exploit vulnerable victims for his own sexual gratification.

“He made a large number of images and videos of children being sexually exploited and abused and we are pleased that he is now behind bars facing the consequences of his offending.”