AN eight-month jail sentence handed to a ‘child porn addict’ would not deter other would-be offenders, a children’s charity said.

Brett Saunders, who worked at Timpson in the Westgate Centre for 20 years, was caught with a stash of almost 1,000 photos and six videos of girls as young as four being abused.

One 90-minute video on his mobile phone depicted ten years of abuse on the same girl.

The video was graded as level five – the worst type – by police, but Paul Harrison, prosecuting, told Oxford Crown Court yesterday Saunders had destroyed a laptop containing “the worst images” by throwing it into a river as police closed in.

Saunders, 36, of Shaftesbury Road, Barton, Oxford, had earlier admitted perverting the course of justice and four counts of making indecent images of children.

His pornography was discovered when a Timpson colleague found a CD next to a work computer.

It contained 807 images of girls between four and 16 years old, rated at levels one and two.

His mobile phone also contained six videos.

Sophie Murray, defending, said Saunders had been a child porn addict for eight years and was ashamed of his actions and wanted to get help.

Jailing him for eight months, Recorder Peter Kyte said: “I completely accept you feel nothing but embarrassment and deep remorse at what you’ve been doing for what would seem a total of about eight years.”

Saunders was also told to sign the sex offenders’ register for seven years and was given a seven-year sexual offences prevention order, which restricts his access to children and the Internet.

Claude Knights, of the children’s charity Kidscape, said: “The message this is sending out is not strong enough. These crimes are too prevalent and I don’t think this sentence gives a deterrent.”