A PAEDOPHILE who was caught downloading naked photographs of children at the Westgate public library has been jailed.

It was a member of staff who spotted Joe Matthews' depraved activity while at the Oxfordshire County Library, which is in the Oxford shopping centre.

He had logged in as a guest to 'avoid detection' and was caught downloading images depicting the abuse of children on to a USB.

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It was later revealed that he had a string of previous convictions and had been caught with banned images before.

The 21-year-old of Abingdon Road, Oxford had already admitted the single count of making indecent photographs of children.

He was sentenced for that offence at Oxford Crown Court on Tuesday.

Outlining the case prosecutor Gordana Turudija-Austin said Matthews was caught on September 28 this year.

At about 11.45am a member of staff at the city library saw him using a computer and viewing what was described as 'naked photos of children.'

A USB stick was also spotted plugged into the machine's hard drive.

The police were duly called and Matthews was arrested.

On examining the machine it was revealed that Matthews had been viewing indecent images as well as downloading them on to the personal storage device.

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Those indecent images were determined to be six in the lowest category of severity - C, an involved 'very young children.'

Prosecutors said that he had tried to 'avoid detection' by logging in as a 'guest' on the machine which allowed 30 minutes of free time before the data was wiped from the device.

The court went on to hear that Matthews has 16 previous crimes to his name, and had previously been convicted of having other images depicting child sexual abuse.

In mitigation it was said that Matthews had no other relationships and that he had used the images for his own sexual gratification and he 'accepts he needs help.'

Sentencing, Judge Maria Lamb said: "This is now the fifth occasion on which you have been before the courts for the making of indecent images.

"This time the number of images involved is relatively low, there are six category C images.

"But they depict very young children and in my view there are aggravating features here."

Matthews was jailed for a total of 12 months and must pay a victim surcharge.

He also remains subject to a sexual harm prevention order until 2028 and will sign the sex offenders register for 10 years.