A PSYCHIATRIC nurse caught with nearly 1,000 indecent images of children has been jailed.

Bolton Crown Court heard that a detective investigating Martyn Alcock said one of the images found on his computer was the most disturbing she had seen in her career.

Alcock, of Lupin Avenue, Farnworth, was found to have 978 indecent images of children, including 46 images at level five — depicting the worst abuse — and 232 level four.

Roger Brown, prosecuting, said officers discovered he had made the images and films available for distribution on a file sharing website using the name “DaddyMart1959”.

Police raided the 53-year-old’s home on May 2 last year. He told officers they would find images on a computer upstairs.

He admitted the offences at his first appearance at the magistrates court.

Yesterday, the court heard the children in the images range in age from toddlers to 12-year-olds, with the majority being between nine and 12-years-old. Images included pictures of boys and girls, but the majority were of boys.

Nicola Gatto, defending, said Alcock had worked successfully as a psychiatric ward in an adolescent unit for 18 years until his arrest.

She said: “He lived with his mother, who died last year. This had a significant impact on him. Since she died his social circle has been very small. Due to isolation and loneliness he turned more and more to the internet.”

She added that his three older sisters were supportive of Alcock and he is considered as gentle, caring and kind by his family.

Ms Gatto said his interest in children was “worrying” and added a jail term would not address his offending but a course in the community aimed at sex offenders would.

Alcock, who had no previous convictions, admitted 22 counts of possessing indecent images, two counts of possessing prohibited images and three counts of possessing extreme images involving animals.

Recorder Suzanne Goddard QC jailed Alcock for 16 months. He was also ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for 10 years and to comply with a sexual offenders’ prevention order, banning him from unsupervised contact with children.