A middl-e Acton man who held more than 3,000 images of child sex abuse on his computer narrowly avoided jail last Friday.
Stefan Kopec, 51, of Valetta Road, sobbed in the dock at Isleworth Crown Court when he was told he would not be going to jail despite having more than 300 pictures in category four - one below the highest level.
The former rigger admitted seven charges of making indecent images over six years until October.
Suspending a nine month sentence for three years the judge, Recorder David Williams QC said: "Only because of the special mitigating circumstances of your case, and the character witness, I am just persuaded you will not go to prison immediately. This is a bad case.
"Children must be protected and this is quite clearly a case of abuse of children by downloading a large quantity of images accessible to other people.
"It is only because you have no previous convictions and I accept that you downloaded images for your own sexual gratification and then deleted them in a glut of remorse and shame, that I consider it possible you are someone who can have help to put this perversion behind you."
Prosecutor Jonathan Taylor, said the case involved 3,631 images of child pornography of which 306 were in category four and one in category five with the rest in lower categories, most-ly in category one.
Kopec downloaded them from 'shared' files and deleted them soon afterwards out of a sense of guilt, before starting the process again, it was claimed in court.
Defending, Nicholas Corsellis, said that when police raided Kopec's home last October, "he made a full confession and was candid about his activities".
"There was no connection to the actual child abuse and this is not a case of distribution - there is no question of his e-mailing this material to others. But with the use of the internet and the accessibility of the material - it is free - and the anonymity, he is doing something about it with the assistance of others."
Kopec will remain under supervision for three years, on the sex offenders' register, and he must take part in sex offender courses.
"His computer equipment was confiscated."
