A Clevedon man was sentenced to 10 months in prison on Thursday for possessing hundreds of indecent videos of children.

Timothy Gray admitted possessing 440 indecent videos of children and 90 images.

Gray’s home in Windsor Close had been raided by police in on March 12 following a tip-off.

A computer, two hard drives and a USB stick were seized and found to contain the abusive videos which had been in his possession for two years.

Zoe Garland who investigated the videos said that they were some of the worst she had seen, with some of the videos showing children as young as two being abused.

The court was told Gray, aged 51, had no previous convictions.

He had begun a new business delivering stationery in Plymouth and intended to move to the area with his wife in order to start fresh as well as look after his 90-year-old mother who already lived in the city.

He also said that regardless of the sentence Gray would work with the probation service to address his issues.

Judge Euan Ambrose, addressing Gray, said: “These offences are serious because even though you are not a physical abuser the images encourage physical abusers to carry out that abuse.

“Each and every one of those images is a terrible crime which is why the downloading of these images is a serious crime because it encourages the physical crime.”

“The videos showed boys, some as young as toddlers, there was considerable pain and suffering shown in many of the images.”

In total, 394 of the videos were deemed category A the worst type, with one video lasting almost four hours. Gray was also sentenced for being in possession of 22 category B videos, and 19 category C videos, which Judge Ambrose said was the equivalent of an enormous quantity of images.

Gray was sentenced to 10 months for possession of the category A materials, six months reduced to four for the category B materials and three months reduced to two for the category C materials. All will run concurrently.

Gray was made subject to a sexual harm prevention order for 10 years at the Bristol Crown Court hearing.

An order to destroy the computer was made in May.