Shrewsbury musician had 6,000 indecent child pictures
A musician had more than 6,000 indecent images of children and obscene pictures of animals when police raided his home, a court was told.
Thomas Higginson, 28, pleaded guilty to 20 counts of making indecent photographs of children, two counts of possessing extreme pornographic images of animals and also possessing indecent movies.
The offences, which range from category A to C on levels of seriousness, took place between June 10, 2013 and May 28, 2014.
Prosecutor Mr Hugh Williams told Shrewsbury Crown Court officers seized two computers that contained 665, Category A, indecent images of children, 564 of Category B, 5,103 of Category C. There were also eight Category B movie images, three Category C and four extreme cartoons and seven stills.
He said in total, Higginson, of Dunwoody Court in Monkmoor, Shrewsbury, had been found in possession of 6,354 images, around 4,000 of these were found in the deleted part of the hard drive.
Police raided his home on May 28 last year and seized two computers and DVDs.
Since his arrest, Higginson has lost his job and was kicked out of a local orchestra, where he played the violin.
Judge Robin Onions stressed how Higginson, who has Asperger's syndrome and is autistic, would be vulnerable in custody.
Instead, he handed him a three-year community order, with conditions to attend a community sex offender group work programme and a sexual harm prevention order for five years. He was also banned him from working with children.
