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A former councillor who downloaded 290,000 child abuse images has been given a suspended prison sentence.

Roger Spackman, 50, of College Road, Exeter, was tracked down by police after engaging in an illegal online chat network.

He admitted three counts of making indecent images and two of possession of prohibited or extreme images.

He was sentenced at Exeter Crown Court to 10 months' imprisonment, suspended for two years.

In 2008 Spackman joined an underground internet community called The Other Place, where child abuse images and sexual fantasies were shared, the court was told.

He was a Labour councillor for the Newtown and St Leonards district of Exeter City Council until 2017, when police tracked his IP address from the now removed site and raided his home.

Police uncovered 290,672 images of child sexual abuse on 68 devices, which featured children as young as seven.

This included 58 images of the most serious nature, 49 category B images, 27,407 category C images, and 8,672 indecent drawings or cartoons.

Spackman had got involved in the online chats because he was trying to come to terms with abuse in his own childhood, and at times pretended to be an abused young girl, the court was told.

Judge Peter Johnson told Spackman: "In essence, you were undertaking some form of therapeutic role-play in which others invited you to take the part of the victim and sent you indecent photographs to assist in the role-play.

"What is troubling is the huge and remarkable number of images."

Spackman was placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years and ordered to 40 days of rehabilitation activities.