These were found on 11 USB drives, two tablet computers and two SD cards hidden in various places including rolled-up socks and a jigsaw puzzle box.

District Court judge Chris Hoy, SC, said the number of images found was “extraordinary”.

He described offending such as that by Allan Darrell Blake as “disgraceful” given the predatory abuse the children depicted suffered.

Judge Hoy said people such as Blake who viewed these images simply “fed these vile activities” and “the ongoing abuse of children around the world”.

But he also noted how a pre-sentence report provided to the court revealed how Blake “doesn’t have any sexual attraction to children”. 

Blake, 58, was sentenced this week to three years’ jail, with a non-parole period of two years, after pleading guilty to possessing child abuse material

The sentence was backdated to Blake’s arrest on March 4.

Judge Hoy said the Crown case revealed how Blake had suffered a horrendous childhood whereby he suffered sexual abuse at the hands of relatives.

This ultimately led to him becoming trapped in a life as a child prostitute, which lasted until his early adulthood.

Blake had since lived a life of social isolation, with depression linked to his childhood experiences and with him being beset by serious heart health issues.

The court was told the District Court placed Blake on the sex offenders’ register for 20 years back in 2006 for a similar crime, for which he remained in jail until 2011.

It was this that led to police conducting a routine visit that uncovered the first 100,000 images on a computer.

The court heard Blake initially denied having a computer, then relented to say he did but it belonged to a friend. He then admitted the computer was his, then offered police his password.

Police saw thumbnail files of child sex abuse images.

Judge Hoy said Blake told police there were 100,000 such images on the computer across five of the six different categories of abuse.

This was confirmed when police downloaded and inspected about 1.7 per cent of the images. Blake told police that most of the images were classed as category 4, which meant these depicted children involved in acts of sexual penetration with other children or adults.

Judge Hoy imposed stringent conditions on Blake’s sentence related to him receiving appropriate mental and other health treatment in jail, as well as on his release on probation. He said it was vitally important that Blake abided by courses designed to aid his rehabilitation.

Border Mail