A man was found by police to have more than half a million indecent images of children on a range of electronic devices, a court has heard.

Police went to the home of Timothy Saville, 47, in Great Yarmouth on February 5 last year and examined a number of electronic items.

Edward Renvoize, prosecuting at Norwich Crown Court, said a “fairly significant quantity” of indecent images were found on hard drives, laptops and USB sticks.

The court heard police found 4077 category A images - the most serious - 175 of which were videos.

They also found 3,923 category B images, including 80 videos and 538,658 category C images.

Prohibited images of children and extreme pornographic images were also found by officers.

Mr Renvoize said some of the images found dated back some time.

He said an iPad was also found with evidence of sexual material having been looked for in the search terms field.

The images contained children at a range of ages with some thought to be as young as three.

Saville, of Falcon Court, Yarmouth, appeared at court on Friday (September 11) having previously admitted three counts of making indecent images of children, one of possessing prohibited images of children and another of possessing extreme pornographic images.

Saville, who represented himself in court, said: “I’m deeply sorry for what I’ve done.

“I’m ashamed of it. I’ve let my family down, I’ve let friends down, I’ve let myself down as a human being. I apologise wholeheartedly.”

Judge Stephen Holt said there was a “huge amount of images” found by police.

Judge Holt said although it was not known who these victims were they were very much victims.

He said: “It’s because people like you download images for sexual gratification that these very young children get appallingly abused”.

Judge Holt conceded the offences had crossed the custody threshold but said was in the public interest to stop defendant’s like Saville from offending again.

Saville was given a 20 month sentence, suspended for two years.

He was also ordered to complete up to 60 days rehabilitation activity requirement (RAR), made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) for 10 years and ordered to sign on the sex offenders register for 10 years.