A TEENAGE paedophile who was training to be a teaching assistant has been sent to prison for possessing images of extreme sexual violence towards young boys.

A police investigation revealed Louie Hancock, 19, had more than 4,000 indecent images of boys as young as 18 months on his laptop. The images included 588 level five images, which are images that show sadism or bestiality.

Salisbury Crown Court heard that police went to his home on Devizes Road and Hancock admitted having the images. Tom Wright, prosecuting, told the court Hancock had sent images to other paedophiles and had conversations about his sexual fantasies.

He said: “They had conversations about sexual violence and sexual fantasies about the abduction, torture and rape of young male children and the defendant said ‘one day maybe these fantasies we could both turn them into a reality together’.”

Defending Hancock, Megan Topliss said the picture painted was of a very different young man to the one known to his family and friends.

She handed in references from his parents and from the head of faculty at Totton College, where he was a student, and said he also worked hard as a football referee.

Judge Susan Evans QC said: “The images and the descriptions are of a shocking nature, real violence being perpetrated against young children. The damage inflicted upon them is enormous, this is life changing abuse.

"And it will be of real concern to the public that you were training to be a teaching assistant at that time and spent time in primary schools.”

Hancock admitted 11 counts of distributing indecent images, seven counts of making or downloading indecent images, one of possession of 4,076 indecent images and one of possession of prohibited images.

He was sentenced to 26 months in a young offenders institution, ordered to sign the sex offenders register for ten years and banned from working with children. He was also made the subject of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order, restricting his internet access for ten years