A paedophile who was found with more than 137,000 indecent images of children has been spared jail because he wants to start a family.

Richard Arrowsmith faced up to five years in prison but was handed a suspended sentence after telling a judge he wanted to become a father.

The 41-year-old was arrested after police received a tip-off in February that an IP address linked to his Sky account was used to download the pictures.

Officers executed a warrant at his home and seized a computer, external hard drive, laptop, mobile phone and USB sticks on April 19 this year.

A court heard a police computerised scanning system flagged up at least 10,000 indecent images and videos on the devices.