A “FAMILY man” is today a convicted sex offender after he downloaded videos and pictures of children being sexually abused and tortured, York Crown Court heard.

Police found the illegal images on computers at Neil Robert Jarvis Baillie’s York and Manchester addresses, said prosecutor Keith Allen.

They included at least 80 videos of children being subjected to the worst category of sexual abuse.

“We are talking here of young children and horrible, horrible abuse, torture even,” said Recorder David Gordon at York Crown Court.

“If it wasn’t for people like you, it may well be children would suffer rather less in the world than they do,” he told the 51-year-old man.

“As it is there is a market, apparently, for these images.

“People around the world abuse children, take photos and videos and upload them to the internet for people like you to view for their perverted satisfaction.”

Baillie, of Marygate, central York, pleaded guilty to three charges of downloading indecent images of children, one of having prohibited images and one of having extreme pornography.

He was given a two-year community order with a sex offenders’ treatment programme and 100 hours’ unpaid work.

He was also put on the sex offenders’ register and made subject to a sexual harm prevention order both for five years, and ordered to pay £512 prosecution costs and an £85 statutory surcharge.

For Baillie, Neal Kutte said he had already taken steps to tackle his behaviour by doing an online course run by a charity specialising in helping sex offenders.

He gave no further mitigation after the judge indicated he would not jail Baillie.

The judge said when not looking at indecent images of children, Baillie was a “family man” who worked hard with a responsible job.

The court heard the majority of the images were of the worst category, but there were others in the other two categories.

The sexual harm prevention order restricts Baillie’s use of the internet and enables police to monitor his activities online.