A man who had more than 380,000 indecent images of children on his computer has been jailed for 15 months.

Mark Roberts downloaded the pictures and movies over a five year period and stored them in carefully catalogued files on his machines and discs.

But the 36-year-old was caught after police in Germany found him accessing a web site with particularly sickening images on it.

Roberts' collection of 384,407 images stored on DVDs and computer hard drive is the largest uncovered by Wiltshire police.

As well as the hundreds of thousands of pictures he also had more than a thousand indecent movies of children.

Colin Meeke, prosecuting, said law enforcement agencies in Germany were monitoring people who went onto the web site.

On an evening in August 2005 they discovered a computer with Roberts' internet protocol address was logged on to the site.

The details were passed to the Wiltshire police via New Scotland Yard and on Thursday December 14 last year officers executed a search warrant at his home.

When he was first questioned he told police that he had accessed adult pornography from the internet and had seen some images of children.

He accepted he had entered the word young' in search engines and that he was responsible for what was found on his machine.

After the haul of indecent images was found he was spoken to again and Mr Meeke said he provided a lame' excuse saying he was going to report the matters to the authorities.

Mr Meeke said it did not account for his cataloguing of the images or the fact that he had made no efforts to contact anyone about them.

He added that the images had been downloaded and stored by Roberts over a five year period leading up to his arrest.

Roberts, of Morse Street, pleaded guilty to 23 counts of making and one of possessing indecent images of children.

Rob Ross, defending, said his client had experienced a difficult life and had been abused himself.

He said he was beginning to confront what he had done and was being supported by his partner and family.

Mr Ross said that his client had mental health problems and to a certain extent was in a state of denial about the offending.

However he said that reports from the probation service and the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, which specialises in treating sex offenders, showed that his client ws not a lost cause.

"It is clear from the report that there is a lot that can be done with this man," he said.

Jailing him Judge Lester Boothman said "It is often said and I'll say it again that this type of offence encourages the abuse of young children and that is why the court passes sentences like this"

He also banned Roberts from working with children for ten years and told him to register as a sex offender for ten years.