By Tom Morris t.morris@bepp.co.uk

Avicar who spent eight years preaching in Gloucester has been jailed after police officers found more than 56,000 sexual images of children on his computer.

Depraved Richard Hart, 59, was jailed at Cardiff Crown Court for three-and-half-years after he admitted amassing the huge collection, described by the prosecution as a paedophile's Aladdin's Cave.

He was trapped when his credit card details from the illicit websites he had accessed were passed on to police officers who then raided his home at Whopshott Avenue, Horsell, in Woking, Surrey.

Hart, who worked in Gloucester between 1992 and 2000, was suspended from all duties by the Church in Wales following his arrest. He was also disqualified from working with children.

A trained computer programmer, Hart will also be subject to a 10-year sexual prevention order upon his release.

He was ordained as a priest in 1986, and served communities across Wales and Gloucester until his crimes came to light earlier this year.

An Oxford graduate, his first position within the Church in Wales was as a curate in Sketty, Swansea, from 1985 to 1987.

He then became priest-in-charge of a parish in Mid Wales until 1992, when he became priest-in-charge of a parish in Gloucester. He remained in that position, at the parish of Preston and Dymock with Donnington and Kempley, until 2000.

The following year, he took up his position in Mid Wales.

Officers from Dyfed-Powys Police carried out the raid on January 11 after Hart's credit card details from the illicit websites, were passed onto them.

Ieuan Morris, prosecuting, said: "What they identified from material in the bedroom was, to a paedophile, a veritable Aladdin's Cave.

"Subsequent examination of the hard drive revealed an array of child pornography."

In addition to 344 printed images, 56,562 images were recovered from Hart's computer. Of these, 1,445 were deemed category four and 44 category five – the most serious and degrading classification of images.

The court heard some were of girls aged four.

"The prosecution say beneath the veneer of respectability, there lurked a perverted craving and lusting for young girls," said Mr Morris.

The court heard Hart's 41-year-old wife, Julia, was interviewed by police following the raid.

Mr Morris said: "She said she knew her husband viewed images of children from about the age of five years of age and was not surprised the police were there."

She said the couple would sometimes view some of the milder images before sexual intercourse but at a later interview expressed her "sickening" at the sheer volume of images on her husband's computer.

She was subsequently cautioned for possession of category one sexual images of children.

John Ryan, defending, said: "Mr Hart is hugely disappointed in himself.

"For him, his career is at an end.

"At his stage in life, it is likely he will never work again."

Jailing Hart, Judge Michael Burr told him: "Richard Hart, you have pleaded guilty to 21 offences of making, taking, and possessing indecent images of children – some of them very young.

"We've heard they were aged between four and 15, involving a great variety of sexual activity and perversion.

"Each image reflected actual abuse of a real child somewhere in the world supported by people like you, paying money to access those sites on the internet and that is perpetuating the whole dreadful business of child abuse."