A would-be lawyer born with a silver spoon in his mouth claimed not to realise that having sick child sex abuse images was so serious.

The judge, Recorder Samantha Presland, was wide-eyed in astonishment on being told that Ronaldo da Silva de Araujo was ‘not aware’ how seriously sharing the vile indecent images of children was taken.

“I don’t understand how, as an adult human being, you wouldn’t understand the seriousness,” she hit back at the 27-year-old’s barrister.

Sending the East Timorese man to jail for two years, Recorder Presland told the former law student: “To say you didn’t realise it was a serious offence, having studied as a lawyer in your own country is not any excuse at all and is failing to take responsibility for your behaviour.

"I can’t believe in any country in the world an ordinary, right-minded human being wouldn’t realise this is just wrong full stop.”

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Earlier, prosecutor Matthew Knight told Oxford Crown Court that police went to Araujo’s home after receiving intelligence that someone at the address was uploading indecent images of children over the internet.

The officers seized Samsung mobile phones that, when analysed, were found to contain more than 800 indecent images, including 403 in the worst category.

Araujo was a member of a conversation thread on the Kik social media app and had exchanged material from his collection with other paedophiles.

Mr Knight read messages sent in the chat thread, including the words: “You wanna trade some videos of young girls?”

The defendant, formerly of Farm Close Road, Wheatley, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to possession and distribution of indecent images of children.

In mitigation, it was said that Araujo had started using the Kik application for innocuous reasons but his interest in the app had ‘led onto’ looking at the illegal material. He was said to now understand what he did was wrong and the law had been explained to him.

He was born to privilege in East Timor and had spent parts of his childhood abroad. He did two years of a law degree in his home country.

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Sentencing, Recorder Presland tore into those who, like Araujo, fuelled the abuse suffered by the children in the images.

“Without the market the images wouldn’t be produced. It’s not a victimless crime. You are actually creating a market for these children to be abused,” she said.

She sent him to prison for two years. He will be on the sex offender register for a decade.

Following the hearing, Thames Valley Police said they did not have a custody image of the defendant as he had been charged by post.