A SOUTHAMPTON man had hundreds of the most serious indecent images on his laptop, a court heard.

Louis Alexander Szasz never considered the fact that children were being abused, a judge was told.

The 41-year-old “just stumbled across” the photos and “didn’t know why he downloaded them”.

Prosecution barrister, Rose Burns told how police had found a large number of files on a MacBook and external hard drive belonging to Szasz.

These included 683 category A images - the most serious category - as well as extreme pornography involving animals.

Ms Burns told how officers had gone to his home address in Bridge Road, on May 18, 2019.

During a police interview the next day he said he did not look at images often and was not addicted to them.

Appearing before Southampton Crown Court, the water cooler engineer faced six charges with the offences taking place between August 2016 and May 2019.

These included making indecent photographs of a child and distributing indecent images.

The court heard how Szasz had used the “black” or dark web to download files.

Some of these had then been distributed via a sharing application.

Defending, Peter Asteris said that his client had never been before a court before.

He described him as extremely vulnerable and suffering from extremely low self-esteem.

Mr Asteris argued that Szasz cares for his terminally ill father and had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.

During sentencing, Mr Recorder Richard Smith QC said that the offences had crossed the custody threshold.

However, he said how Szaz had sought to address his behaviour and that there was a realistic prospect of rehabilitation.

He was given a 30-month community order, must complete 40 days of rehabilitation and 150 hours of unpaid work.

Szasz will be the subject of a ten-year sexual harm prevention order.

Mr Smith warned if Szasz failed the order he would have no one to blame but himself.