A PAEDOPHILE who downloaded hundreds of images of child abuse as well as extreme pornography involving horses, claimed he accessed the images 'out of curiosity.'

Police first discovered Yacine Taibi's fetish for the sickening images after a raid at his Marsh Road, Oxford, home on January 27 this year.

Oxford Crown Court heard at his sentencing on Thursday how when officers seized an Acer laptop from the property they discovered hundreds of illegal images.

After forensic analysis on the device they found it to contain 70 images and videos of the most extreme category – A, 81 images at category B and 337 images and videos at category C.

They also found 10 images of extreme pornography which prosecutors said "mostly involved horses".

The images, the court heard, were considered "inaccessible" meaning they had either been deleted before the machine was seized or their original locations moved, and the activity went as far back as 2015.

The 47-year old, originally from Algeria, had already pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children from all three categories, as well as one count of possessing extreme pornography.

In mitigation, Gordana Turudija-Austin said her client was a man of previous good character and was sorry for downloading the images.

She said: "He understands that what he has done was wrong and he should not have done that. He has expressed his remorse and pleaded guilty at the first opportunity.

"He said that initially it was curiosity [...] and he didn't realise that extreme pornography was illegal."

Sentencing, Judge Zoe Smith said that the offences were so serious they could only result in a custodial sentence, albeit one which could be suspended so he could receive treatment.

She said: "Category A images are nothing more than torture of children, it is appalling.

"They are awful and they are real children being subjected to this and that is why it is such a serious offence."

For the category A images he was given an eight-month jail term to run concurrently with six months each for the category B and C images and the extreme pornography, all of which are concurrent with one another, and are suspended for two years.

He was also made subject to a community order to include a 25-day rehabilitation activity requirement and pay court costs of £425 as well as a statutory victim surcharge.