A 68-year-old Gloucester man once caught photographing girls outside their school has been jailed for ten months for possessing 80 indecent videos of young girls aged between 7 and 14 on his computer.

At Gloucester Crown Court last Friday Gordon Smith of Denmark Road, Kingsholm, admitted having 15 videos of the most serious Category A, 62 videos in Category B and three videos in category C.

The court was told that Gloucestershire Police had been given information that indecent videos were being downloaded at an address in the city and as a result raided his home on December 7th 2018.

Grace Flynn, prosecuting, said: "When the police arrived at Smith's home a quick thinking officer spotted that an Acer laptop with an external hard drive had specialist software running that removes junk and other unwanted files.

"The officer disabled the computer by removing the power supply and the internal battery from the unit.

"The computer was later forensically examined and the indecent images and videos were found and recovered.

"Smith initially told the police that he had no idea how the images had got onto his computer and suggested it was via a virus, which is why he said that he was using the programme at the time of arrest."

Ms Flynn told the court that Smith later admitted that he was responsible for downloading the indecent material.

The court heard that Smith had previous convictions for similar offences.

In 2006 Smith was given a caution for photographing teenage girls outside a school exit and was convicted in 2011 for having extreme pornography on his computer, including bestiality.

In mitigation the court heard that Smith had lost his job and that his marriage had collapsed at the age of 51 following which he had never really recovered. He had little social interaction and was living like a recluse.

Recorder James Waddington QC told the defendant "Having been found with 80 indecent videos on your computer of young children aged between seven and 14 is bad enough but it is aggravated by your previous offending.

"Thankfully a quick thinking officer was able to stop your computer from deleting the evidence on this occasion.

"But taking everything into consideration this offence can only be dealt with by way of a custodial sentence because of your previous convictions.

The judge sentenced Smith to ten months in prison and made him subject to a sexual harm prevention order that limits his future use of the internet.

The judge also ordered for the forfeiture and destruction of Smith's computer and hard drives.