A PAEDOPHILE snared with a sickening stash of 70,000 indecent images of children at his Inverclyde home is today beginning a two-and-a-half year prison sentence.

Craig Johnstone was caught with the huge haul of disgusting material just months after being released from prison following his conviction for an identical previous offence - which involved nearly 50,000 images.

The 40-year-old pervert pleaded guilty at Greenock Sheriff Court to storing the explicit photos on a computer hard drive after police raided his one-bedroom Leperstone Avenue home in Kilmacolm last October.

Officers discovered the electronic device in a chest of drawers and the now twice convicted sex offender 'immediately took ownership of it', the court heard.

The hard drive was analysed and found to contain 70,000 indecent images of children, of which 155 were in the most extreme category A, 363 were classed as category B, and the remaining were category C.

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Each of the photos had creation dates attached to them pinpointing when Johnstone downloaded them, however, a procurator fiscal depute said there was 'no suggestion' that the images had been produced first-hand.

The Telegraph previously reported that Johnstone was found with videos and more than 46,000 depraved images on a laptop computer and two mobile phone SIM cards in his former one-bedroom flat on Greenock's Dempster Street, having amassed the material over eight months between July 2019 and March 2020.

He told officers at the time: "I've messed my life up."

He was handed an 18-month prison term for that offence and added to the Sex Offenders Register for ten years - and committed further offences over the period from August 2022 to October last year.

Sentence had been delayed on the latest crimes for a criminal justice social work report 'to give more insight' into Johnstone's background, with Sheriff James Varney telling the offender that the 'alarming' case could only be dealt with by the imposition of custody.

Sheriff Varney sentenced Johnstone to 30 months imprisonment.