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A reclusive pervert superimposed a girl's face on to sickening images of sexual abuse - which were complete with speech bubbles containing vile words.

Jobless Robin Moffat, 61, amassed a huge collection of 177,112 horrifying child abuse images over a 10-year period to satisfy his sexual deviance.

Most disturbingly, he had altered and annotated some of the repulsive pictures, Photoshopping a specific girl's head on to them.

He pasted her head on top the victim's in the picture, and then put his own face on top the abuser's in the picture.

He then even added grotesque speech bubbles to depict abuse.

The girl, now a young woman, told of her enduring distress, anxiety and trauma after Moffat effectively stole her identity.

Officers from Cleveland Police paedophile online investigation team (POLIT) went to the home where he lived alone on Palmerston Street, Stockton.

They seized devices including a laptop, a computer tower, hard drives, and two phones on November 15 last year.

They discovered the library of vile images downloaded from the internet over the previous decade, Teesside Crown Court heard on Tuesday.

They showed the sexual abuse of children, from toddlers to teenagers, including a video lasting almost two hours.

'I'm not the same person as I was before this'

Prosecutor Jenny Haigh said the image of a particular child was added to some of the pictures.

She said: "He had Photoshopped and superimposed on to those images the face of (the child) as the child being abused, and had Photoshopped his own picture on the perpetrator.

"The defendant had chosen to write speech bubbles with various comments upon them."

The young woman said in a statement she now felt physically sick every time she heard Moffat's name.

She told how she suffered serious night terrors, had angry outbursts and sought counselling since learning how her image was used.

"I now look at myself as two people - the old me and the new me," she wrote.

"I'm not the same person as I was before this. I feel my identity has been stolen and I'm completely different in so many ways."

'I find everything and everyone suspicious'

She said Moffat's crime robbed her of her innocence and made her cautious, uncomfortable and unsettled, profoundly affecting her happiness.

She added: "My freedom of choice has been taken from me. I find everything and everyone suspicious."

She said the police had no way of knowing whether the pictures had been shown to other paedophiles.

Her mother described Moffat's actions as "utterly disgusting and disrespectful".

Moffat admitted making more than 28,000 indecent photographs of children included 6,077 images in the most serious category.

This was a mere "sample" of his collection of over 170,000 pictures.

He also admitted one charge of possessing 89 prohibited images of children and one of possessing 1,112 images of extreme pornography involving adults and animals.

'He lives in his own world'

Officers had received information that indecent images had been offered for distribution, though there was no evidence of sharing images.

It was the unemployed recluse's first conviction.

Michele Turner, defending, said Moffat was socially isolated since he was a child, more so since he was made redundant from a senior retail job in the 1990s.

"He lives in his own world," said Ms Turner.

"He shuts the door. He doesn't have to deal with people outside. He doesn't have to deal with his inadequacies as he sees them.

"He hasn't troubled the court prior to these incidents and has been a functioning member of society for the majority of his adult life."

'Particularly gross'

She said Moffat quickly worked with authorities and agencies as he spent his time in "reflection and terror" in the wake of his arrest.

This helped him with victim empathy and insight into the long-term effects of his offending.

Moffat was said to have health problems, anxiety, depression and disorders which "perhaps should have been investigated a lot sooner".

Ms Turner argued his home was at risk and, if jailed, he would "come out to nothing", homeless with no treatment or rehabilitation.

Judge Stephen Ashurst told Moffat: "For many years you've lived a somewhat isolated and lonely life.

"But you've chosen to take solace in seeking out and keeping this vast quantity of indecent images of children.

"The nature of the images describe, I'm afraid, very extreme sexual activity. They are particularly gross."

He said Moffat exploited and manipulated images "in the most appalling way" to use the girl's picture - "a quite separate and distinct departure" from an already unhealthy interest.

The judge added: "I have seldom come across a case of such nature where the impact of what you've done has been so extreme."

Moffat was jailed for four years.

He was given a restraining order to protect the young woman, a sexual harm prevention order banning unsupervised contact with children and governing his internet use, and will be on the sex offenders' register - all indefinitely.