A TEENAGER who combed the internet for 1,405 snaps and movies of abused youngsters has been handed a community order.

Baris Gumus confessed he had hunted for images of children as young as one being exploited when he was 17.

The sex offender, now 18, gazed at the ground as Oxford Crown Court heard he had told police he got ‘sexual gratification’ from staring at the illegal material.

Sentencing on Thursday, Judge Maria Lamb said: “I think up until now you have been very bound up in yourself and your own problems. It’s about time someone did work with you to spell out what your offending has caused to other people.”

She made him subject to a 25-day rehabilitation activity requirement, a five-year sexual harm prevention order and told him to sign the sex offenders register for five years.

Gumus was caught after the National Crime Agency received intelligence linking and IP address with his former Abingdon home.

Police stormed into the Parsons Mead property but were told Gumus had moved to another family address in Hertfordshire on September 22 last year.

Plumbing student Gumus, who must pay £100 costs and a victim surcharge, was later arrested by officers from Hertfordshire Constabulary, prosecutor Robert Lindsey said.

The court heard Gumus, who claimed he was remorseful, had started hunting for the material at a time coinciding with an earlier suicide attempt.

Gumus, now of Highview Gardens, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, admitted possessing a prohibited image of a child and three counts of making indecent photographs of a child between June 6 and September 20 last year.