A partially-sighted Colchester man who downloaded more than 140,000 indecent images of children will be sentenced next month.

Robin Pawsey was due to have been sentenced at Ipswich Crown Court on Thursday ( September 16) but Judge David Pugh agreed to adjourn sentencing to allow a pre-sentence report to be prepared on him by the probation service.

However, he told Pawsey that although the probation report would look at alternatives to custody the starting point for the offences he had admitted was immediate custody.

At an earlier hearing Pawsey, 40, of Victoria Chase, Colchester, admitted three offences of making indecent images of children, possessing prohibited images of children and possession of extreme pornography.

The court heard that Pawsey had 16,150 indecent images of children in the most serious level A category, 17,105 in category B and 111,504 in category C.

He also had 8,735 prohibited images of children in his possession and 28,465 extreme pornographic images.

He also admitted attempted sexual communication with a child.

Steven Dyble, for Pawsey accepted the offences crossed the custody threshold but said the offences dated back three years and Pawsey had not reoffended in that time.

Pawsey will be sentenced on October 19.