A convicted sex offender was found to have nearly 1,500 indecent images of children.

Martin Calvert, 36, had previously been jailed for 18 months for similar offences and given a sexual offences prevention order allowing police to monitor his internet use.

However when officers carried out a ‘routine check’ of his Accrington home on December 13 last year after his release, they found a laptop with nearly 1,500 images which he had tried to erase.

Burnley Crown Court heard how the images include 68 category A – the most serious and involving children as young as two or three years old - 159 category B and 1,235 category C images.

Calvert, of no fixed abode, told officers he was ‘sexually attracted to young boys’ between the ages of five and 12, ‘could not stop going on the internet’ to look for them and had even cut out pictures of children from Christmas catalogues.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of possessing indecent images and jailed for two years with an indefinite sexual harm prevention order and made subject to notification requirements for ten years.

Calvert was jailed in 2013 for possessing indecent images of children and indecent assault.

Stephen Parker, prosecuting, told the court how officers attended his home and became ‘suspicious’ after he disappeared quickly to his bedroom.

When they found a laptop under a duvet, Calvert admitted there were ‘things that probably shouldn’t be there’ and said he ‘needed help’.

Mr Parker said the internet history revealed Calvert had been looking at ‘glaringly obvious’ searches relating to child pornography.

When interviewed, Clavert told police the laptop had been in his possession before his previous jail term in 2013 and he had deleted around 200 images before the officers found it.

Mr Parker said Calvert told officers he had been in a ‘very low mood and not been able to fight his urges’. He told how Calvert said he ‘couldn’t stop going on the internet as it was available and all too tempting’ and he had not been given the opportunity to go on the sex offenders treatment programme while in custody.

Richard Taylor, defending, said he deserved full credit for his guilty plea and, that ‘it was not just his sexual predilection but also his drug misuse and depression’ that played a part in his offending and he would access help.