A PERVERT who hoarded child abuse images for 17 years has been spared jail.

Paul Goretti, 50, viewed the banned filth at his home in Brisbane Road, Bishopton, between July 2000 and March last year.

Some of the files he viewed, which included pictures and movies and were contained on two hard drives stashed in his loft, were categorised as being the most extreme there is.

The images featured girls aged between three and 13 – and Goretti hoarded them for so long that the youngest children would have been adults by the time police caught up with him.

He admitted his guilt when he appeared in the dock at Paisley Sheriff Court in January for a pre-trial hearing.

The court heard he told police he had been looking at legal adult porn and clicked through to the indecent images of children by accident.

Goretti admitted two charges of breaking the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 by downloading indecent images of children and hoarding them for 17 years.

Following his guilty pleas, Sheriff James Spy placed him on the Sex Offenders’ Register and deferred sentence for background reports.

When Goretti returned to the dock on Monday to learn his fate, he was allowed to leave court as a free man.

Sheriff Spy placed him on a Probation Order which will see him supervised by social workers for three years and carry out 240 hours of unpaid work.

Goretti must also attend courses which seek to help sex offenders change their ways, was placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register for three years, will be reported to the government as being unsuitable to work with vulnerable groups and has to return to court for a progress review in June.

Speaking after sentence was passed, a spokesman for the NSPCC Scotland children’s charity said: “Goretti accessed and stored a number of depraved images. Behind every one was a real child suffering appalling abuse and his actions have only fuelled the demand for this sickening material to be produced.

“Possessing images of child abuse must not be tolerated but it is vital that tech companies, law enforcement and government work together to prevent this vile material being published and circulated in the first place.”