A civil servant who downloaded and swapped "repellent" images of children being sexually abused while fantasising about their rape, murder and torture has been jailed for two years. 

Barry Shaw, left, leaves Belfast Laganside Courts with his legal advisor (© Pacemaker)

Jailing 31-year-old Barry James Shaw at Belfast Crown Court on Wednesday, Judge Patrick Lynch QC also imposed a further three year probation order and ordered the man to sign the police sex offenders' register for the rest of his life and barred him from ever working with children.

While delivering his judgement, he said to Shaw: "You may have felt at the time, in your room downloading these materials that you caused no hurt to anyone but for each of these appalling images there are victims and if it were not for people like yourself there would be no demand for them and the abuse that is inherent in the production of these materials would not occur."

Barry James Shaw, from Balfour Avenue in south Belfast, pleaded guilty to 24 charges of making indecent images of children and a further four of distributing indecent images on dates between February 2006 and August 2009.

The charges cover a total of 4,630 images, including 28 movie files and almost 1,000 images at the most heinous categories of four and five which show penetrative sexual acts between adults and children as as well sadistic and bestiality images.

The photographs and movie files were uncovered on two computers when police raided the home of Shaw and his parents and when examined by the PSNI E-crime unit, it was also uncovered that he had distributed over 200 images with other people.

Those examinations also revealed online chat logs where Shaw boasted about sickening fantasies over the rape, murder and torture of babies.

Shaw also admitted to police to wishing he had snatched missing toddler Madeleine McCann