A man from Colchester has been given a community order after police raided his home and found he had downloaded indecent images of children.

John Tamblyn, of Mersea Road in the north Essex city, admitted to downloading almost 100 indecent images of children and was sentenced at Ipswich Crown Court on Friday.

The court heard officers attended Tamblyn’s address on March 26, 2021 as a result of receiving intelligence that his devices were being used to download child images.

Police raided the property and seized the devices.

Three of the images were Category B and 92 were Category C.

Category A images involve penetrative sexual activity, category B images involve non-penetrative sexual activity; and category C images do not depict sexual activities but can show, for example, children in sexual poses.

Judge Martyn Levett told the defendant as he was sentenced: “Downloading these images has reached such epidemic proportion I need to express on behalf of the public the way in which it is harmful for all children.

“It perpetuates the flood of these images on the internet. They are of people; they are human beings - although it is often overlooked that they are human beings.”

He added that the victims in these images often grow up to the realisation they can never get rid of them.

“Images of them in these indecent positions will always be available for the public to look at,” Judge Levett said.

The court heard Tamblyn, 75, has been married for 47 years and has no previous convictions.

Initially he pleaded not guilty but close to the trial date he changed his plea and admitted the offence.

On top of the two-year community order, the defendant must complete 80 hours of unpaid work and pay £400 in costs.

A sexual harm prevention order was imposed on the defendant for five years.