Officers found the pictures on three of the 57-year-old’s electronic devices, including an external hard drive, which contained more than 2,000 images.

Hicks was jailed for ten months by Judge Peter Henry, who said he would be “failing in his duty” if he did not impose a custodial sentence.

Southampton Crown Court was told how Hicks came to the attention of police through his use file sharing software.

Also known as P2P sharing, it is an online system where users are given access to media files such as books, music and movies, from other computers connected to the same network.

Though such software is legal, it has regularly been criticised as way for users to illegally share copyrighted material.

Prosecutor Dawn Hyland said police visited Hicks’ home in Barton-on-Sea and seized two laptops.On both laptops they found peer-to-peer sharing programme, Emule, while one laptop was also found to have discontinued programme, LimeWire. Officers also found Hicks had carried out searches for indecent images, including an abbreviated term for “pre-teen sex”.

During the inspection of both laptops, and a separate external hard-drive, police found more than 4,000 indecent images, both still and moving, which dated from 2009 to 2018.

This included 860 category A images – the most serious kind.

Police said the majority of pictures showed children believed to be aged around 10, though one image was estimated to be between three and five.

They also found an extreme pornographic image involving an animal.

Hicks later pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children and one count of possession of an extreme pornographic image.

Sentencing Hicks to 10 months in prison, Judge Peter Henry described the number of images found as “significant”.

He said: “You are a perfectly intelligent man, who knew exactly what you were doing.

“What those images represent is the disgusting and degrading actions demanded of those children and those actions are all filmed for the satisfaction of people like you.

“You may not think they are victims but they are victims.”

Judge Henry added: “I would be failing in my duty if I did not impose an immediate custodial sentence.”

Hicks, of Barton Court Avenue, was also made the subject of a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and made to sign the sex offenders register for 10 years.

The 57-year-old also had nine category A moving images, and more than 2,000 category B still images.

Hicks also had an extreme pornographic image, involving an animal.

The images were downloaded between 2009 and 2018.

Appearing at Southampton Crown Court, Hicks, of Barton Court Avenue, Barton-on-Sea, pleaded guilty to three counts of making an indecent image of a child.

He also pleaded guilty to possessing an extreme pornographic image.

Hicks, who was released on unconditional bail, will be sentenced on March 21 following the completion of a pre-sentence report.

Judge Nicholas Rowland said: “This will be an all options report, which will include the possibility of a custodial sentence, particularly given the number of images involved.”