THE case of a Newport man who was jailed after admitted possessing more than 183,000 indecent images of children, is the largest of its kind in South Wales, according to the CPS.

Michael David John, 53, of Fisher Close, was jailed for 12-months on Wednesday, after pleading guilty to 39 counts of making and possessing indecent images of children.

The court heard police raided John's home on January 21, 2010, where they found a "very substantial quantity" of child pornography on DVDs, a computer with two hard drives, two cameras, as well as printed images.

John pleaded guilty on the basis that he was in possession of a total of 183,049 indecent images, made up of 1,680 level five images - the worst level -, 28,293 level four images, 22,898 level three, 4,318 level two and 125,860 level one images.

A Gwent CPS spokesman said: "The court considered evidence relating to more than 180,000 indecent images of children - making this the largest case of its kind across the South Wales and Gwent areas."

Stacey Turner, District Crown Prosecutor for CPS Gwent, said: "Whilst he has now been brought to justice, it is nonetheless distressing to know that the every one of the children who feature in these kinds of images is a victim of abuse - and that abuse will continue as long as there is a market for these images.”

Gwent Police Detective Superintendent Martin Dew, said: "We need to remember that people who possess and distribute these types of images fuel a market leading to even more children being abused and while they may not think they are the abusers they are certainly perpetuating and encouraging it. We will continue to use every means at our disposal to target these offenders to put an end to the horrific abuse of children."