A man who downloaded more than 3,000 indecent images of children and a series of child abuse videos from the Internet has been jailed for four years.

Southampton Crown Court heard how Mark Crosby, 33, from Seymour Close, Chandler's Ford, downloaded and shared the pictures, some of which were of the most disturbing end of a scale used to measure child abuse pictures.

The images and video clips were found on four computers at Crosby's home by police last month.

The court heard that 3,255 still images were found along with 21 movies, varying across all five levels of indecency.

After a court viewing of a sample of video footage, Judge Longbotham told the defendant that he had to think of public safety in passing sentence.

Crosby pleaded guilty to a charge of downloading pictures of child abuse and videos and also admitted a further 23 other charges of making images that varied in their levels of graphic indecency.

In mitigation Audrey Archer said Crosby had not denied the charges and when questioned over his actions told them where the images were and what websites he had visited. He had also shown remorse.

In sentencing Judge Longbotham also made a Sexual Offences Protection Order against Crosby that bans him from working with children indefinitely.

Crosby is also banned from visiting any premises that has any female under 16 years of age and from having any contact with any child under 16 without their parents' supervision.

The order also bans Crosby from using a computer to access the Internet.