AN engineer caught with more than 27,000 pictures and videos of children was told by a judge that some people would be made physically sick just by hearing a description of the images.

Antony Stefaniuk, 52, of Chestnut Lodge, Perrotts Brook, Cirencester, admitted nine offences of possessing or making indecent images of children and was sentenced to two years jail suspended for two years, at Gloucester Crown Court today.

He was also fined £2,000 and ordered to pay £500 costs.

Stefaniuk, a marine cable engineer, was placed on the sex offender register for ten years and ordered to undergo two years supervision.

Judge Jamie Tabor QC told him: "By downloading these simply appalling images you are encouraging those who take and make them to carry on. Your role may be unintentional but without you and people like you these images would not exist."

Prosecutor Robert Morgan-Jones told the court police went to Stafaniuk's home on October 6 last year with a warrant after being alerted that he was using a file sharing system on which 49 suspect files had been identified.

On his computer and DVD storage system, police found 1,119 of the worst category A still images and seven category A videos.

There were 954 Category B stills and eight videos. The largest number of images, 25,039, were at the least serious categorisation, C. There were also 23 Category C videos.

In total, said Mr Morgan-Jones, Stefaniuk was in possession of 27,150 illegal images and films Stefaniuk was a man of previous good character, the prosecutor added.

Sabhia Pathan, defending, said the probation pre-sentence report on Stefaniuk had 'identified very particular issues' in his life and background which helped to explain his offending.

She referred the court to references provided for Stefaniuk and an 'eloquent' letter he had written himself.

Judge Tabor commented: "He says in his letter 'I would never cause any harm or suffering' and I accept that is true but of course he is harming people by viewing this material and he has got to understand that.

"If I was to read out the descriptions of some of the images he had some people would be physically sick."

Ms Pathan added: "He is crying out for help. That can only be done by probation intervention. He is a very well educated man with a degree in electronic engineering."

Passing sentence, Judge Tabor told Stefaniuk he would have to give up his present job because it involves working abroad and he would have to be available locally at all times to undergo the supervision part of his sentence.