AN ABERYSTWYTH father-of-two caught with hundreds of images of child sex abuse told police that he had become “desensitised” through a long-standing addiction to pornography, a court has heard.

Robert Tiley, of Rockland House, Upper Queens Road, admitted making the ‘indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs’ - which included 44 of the most serious category A - between 8 and 28 October 2019 at Bow Street when he appeared before Aberystwyth magistrates in November.

At a sentencing hearing at Swansea Crown Court, the court heard that the images were found on the 39-year-old’s phone by police after the alarm was raised by his partner over clips and a ‘dark-web’ browser she found on Tiley’s computer.

In his police interview the father-of-two said he had been addicted to pornography since childhood, and his viewing of such material over the years had “desensitised” him.

He told officers he wanted help for his addiction.

The court heard Tiley had now moved out of the family home and been suspended from his job in customer services with a supermarket.

Sentencing, Judge Geraint Walters said it “defied logic that somebody who was a father himself could take delight in viewing such photographs.”

Tiley, who has no previous convictions, was sentenced to six months in prison suspended for two years, and ordered to complete a rehabilitation course.

He will be a registered sex offender for the next seven years.