A PERVERT who downloaded more than 800 indecent images and videos of children has walked free from court.

Daniel Jaggers, 31, pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images over a five-year period between 2011 and 2016.

On June 21 last year officers from Cumbria police raided Jaggers’s home in Barrow after receiving a tip-off from an external crime agency he had been downloading indecent images.

They seized two laptops which were sent for forensic analysis.

Officers uncovered a sickening haul of abuse images and videos featuring children as young as three or four years old.

A total of 37 images were at the most serious category A, with a further 44 at category B and 474 at category C.

Jaggers, of Thurlow Way, Barrow, was arrested and accepted the images which had been discovered were illegal.

He pleaded guilty and appeared at Preston Crown Court to be sentenced.

Judge Sara Dodd said: “Over a five-year period you were accessing and viewing appalling indecent images, sometimes of children of three and four years old.

“Those children I accept you didn’t physically abuse, but your interest in these images is what creates the market for them to be abused.

“There is a direct correlation.

“I am concerned that some of these images, particularly at category A, are moving images and they are moving images not just for seconds or a couple of minutes.

“I could send you to custody but you would be in custody for a relatively few months.

“I’ve no doubt it would be a terribly traumatic experience for you and a very frightening experience.

“However, I am persuaded that the best way of safeguarding children and the general public is by making you the subject of a three-year court order.”

The court heard Jaggers has the support of his family and girlfriend.

Judge Dodd placed him on a three-year community order with a 30 days rehabilitation activity requirement and internet sex offenders programme, and made him the subject of notification requirements and a sexual harm prevention order.