A porn addict whose collection totalled 250,000 images, including pictures of children and animals, was spared jail.

Wayne Cook was sentenced after he pleaded guilty to possessing 2,063 pornographic images of children, 58 movies and 11 extreme photographs of animals.

The 36-year-old production manager from Langham Gardens, Richmond, was cautioned in January 2006 for possessing indecent photographs and admitted he had an addiction to pornography.

Judge Paul Dodgson said: “This is a very serious matter. It is aggravated by the fact that in 2006 you received a warning for similar behaviour.

“It is never to be thought that these are in any way victimless crimes. You may not have put these children on film but someone did.

“Their lives will be blighted forever. They will never recover from that.

“People like you fuel that market and it is a disgusting market. Nothing can excuse the treatment that these children have been subjected to.”

Cook, who is happily married to his partner of eight years and has no children, had asked his solicitor to find him a counsellor for his problem.

He was arrested on August 17 last year at his father-in-law’s address in Richmond by chance, after his laptop and hard drive were seized relating to another corrupted computer.

When he was arrested he fully admitted to police that the images, from level one to the most serious level five, were his.

Cook, who celebrated his first wedding anniversary on Sunday, July 7, had a total of 326 indecent images of children at level four and five.

Judge Dodgson considered handing Cook a custodial sentence but said he felt completing a sex offender treatment programme with the support of his wife would “protect the public in the best way possible”.

He said: “You are blessed with a supportive wife who it seems to me has been more than understanding of your position.

“She has had to reconcile herself that you have been behaving in a way that most people would regard as disgusting.”

Cook was given a 12-month suspended sentence of two years, ordered to pay £350 costs and to complete a sex offender treatment programme, when he appeared at Kingston Crown Court on Wednesday, August 7.