A PERVERT who amassed a collection of 315,531 child porn images has been spared jail.

Michael Raybould, 58, admitted building up one of the largest-ever collections of child porn, which included videos of girls and adults.

And the Kirkheaton man even took a naked photograph of himself and doctored it so he appeared alongside a naked young girl on a collage.

Yesterday His Honour Judge Butterfield described Raybould as a “lonely middle aged man” adding: “This was for sexual gratification whether you like to say it or not.

“The grouping images of these little girls is a sad and pathetic case.”

And he added: “He didn’t think of the terrible harm these children somewhere on the earth have been put through.”

Raybould, of St Peter’s Crescent in Kirkheaton, amassed a sickening collection of 313,961 level one images, 1,448 level two images, 81 level three images, 23 level four and 18 level five indecent photographs of children on or before June 18, 2009.

Level five is the worst category of pornographic images.

He faced 21 charges of making indecent images which involved girls aged between eight and 14 and within the 21 charges were five videos.

Some featured two young girls with an adult male.

His house was raided by police in June, 2009, and computer equipment seized. Police discovered two hard drives which contained the images and movies.

There were also some DVDs and memory sticks, while his television had the facility to watch the images and videos on the big screen.

A examination of his computer found he had created files for the images and named them.

During a police interview Raybould denied amassing the collection of child porn and blamed it on a lodger and the lodger’s wife.

But he was then shown the doctored collage he had created featuring his own naked picture with the young girl and he confessed to the crimes.

During a police interview Raybould confessed: “It’s terrible, I feel a ****, it’s sick.”

Freddy Apfel, defending Raybould, said: “The background to all of this is boredom. He worked long hours but had nothing to do in the evening so spent time on the internet and it accelerated.”

But the judge dismissed Raybould’s excuses and said the defendant was in denial about his problem.

Judge Butterfield told Raybould: “I expect you came to court anticipating leaving not by the front door but by the back door in a prison van, but you’re not.

“The sentencing guidance is 26 weeks in custody, of that you’d serve 13 weeks but they’d probably let you out after 10 on a tag, then what?

“There’d be no help and nothing to ensure this sort of behaviour stopped.”

Instead he suspended Raybould’s 26-week sentence for two years.

Raybould was ordered to attend a sex offenders’ programme with a supervision requirement, also for two years.

He was also made to sign the sex offenders’ register before leaving Leeds Crown Court yesterday.