A SERIAL sex offender who digitally manipulated an image of his genitals on to a photo of a child’s face has been jailed.

Matthew Sutcliffe, 33, of Binfield Road, Wokingham was found with a mammoth stash of child pornography when officers raided his home on April 7, 2016.

Police found hoards of inappropriate images of teenage girls on a laptop hidden under his bed.

The court heard that Sutcliffe had been searching the internet for sexual abuse stories and uploaded images to the web.

Sentencing Sutcliffe at Reading Crown Court on November 24, Deputy circuit judge Neil Stewart said: “You have a definite and a long-lasting sexual interest in children and there is simply no other option but to imprison you for your offences.

“Whenever the images you distributed are downloaded by anyone, they sustain the market for them.”

Sutcliffe had made sure to delete his internet history which contained searches related to abusing children.

The judge showed no sympathy to the computer programmer who “knew he had done wrong” and admitted that therapists no longer believed they could help him change his mindset.

The judge added: “When you went through the Thames Valley course, you were really putting on a show. You never really engaged with the programme at all and continued to offend.”

Judge Stewart noted a number of aggravating factors including the breach of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order which said Suttcliffe was not to own a computer that was not monitored by the police and found this to be an “extremely offensive breach”.

Janick Fielding, mitigating, admitted that the 33 year-old was of at high risk of re-offending but claimed he was never any danger to the public.

Mr Fielding said: “He is not opposed to treatment and has considered options such as chemical treatment to lower libido and to address all of these issues.”

Sutcliffe, who was convicted for similar offences before, will serve half  of his 16 month sentence in prison for numerous counts of making indecent images and breaking a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.