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A perverted father-of-two who set up a camera to watch a female on the toilet was later found to have more than 10,000 child abuse images neatly organised into computer files.

Paedophile Matthew Place from Wakefield was found to be storing two videos that showed he had secretly filmed a woman in a bathroom. She was later tracked down and said that she had no idea the camera was there.

Place, aged 30, was caught out after police received information on the morning of May 22, 2021 when the IP address at his home was flagged up for having indecent images of children.

He was arrested five months later and questioned by police, where he admitted the secret filming and said it was a “silly mistake”.

Pervert Place set up a camera in a toilet, and was also to found to have thousands of child abuse images. (library pics)

Place then strenuously denied he had a sexual interest in children, but after his three internet devices seized from his home were analysed, they were found to contain 10,004 images.

They included 1,168 Category A images – the most serious – along with 1,043 Category B and 7,793 at Category C. They had been arranged into folders over a period of three years, prosecutor Paul Canfield told Leeds Crown Court.

After the images were unearthed, he was interviewed again but gave no comments to police. Place, of Rockwell Crescent, Calder Grove, later admitted three counts of possessing indecent images, possessing a prohibited image of a child, possessing extreme pornography, and voyeurism.

Judge Tom Bayliss KC said he would not jail him, so the mitigation by Place’s barrister, Rukhshanda Hussain, was brief. She said he had no previous convictions and gave early guilty pleas.

Judge Bayliss told Place: “There’s no shying away, people like you think you are doing no harm, but you are doing terrible harm. You are encouraging the sexual abuse of children which is for your sexual gratification as a paedophile.”

He told him that had he contested the case through a trial and found guilty, he would have jailed him for two years. But after pleading guilty, he handed him a three-year community order, stipulating he must sign up to an accredited sex offenders programme. He was also put on the sex offenders register for seven years, and given a five-year sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) to limit his internet use.

Pervert Wakefield dad who set up secret toilet camera had 10,000 child abuse images stored in folders