This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A 70-year-old man who amassed one of the largest known hauls of indecent images in England and Wales has been jailed for more than 12 years.

Officers discovered a collection of more than 2.2m indecent images – as well as an underground “bunker” containing weapons and ammunition – when they searched the home of Geoffrey Crossland in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.

Crossland was sentenced to 12 years and eight months at York crown court on Monday. The judge, Andrew Stubbs QC, said the “scale of the depravity” of the material was hard for the public to understand.

“Your criminality was unearthed, almost literally, on 18 October last year when officers searched your house for images of children,” the judge said. “One issue which is not forgotten is that these images capture real-life people, and at the same time real-life sexual abuse being carried out on them.”

Following the sentencing, North Yorkshire police said it was investigating whether Crossland was involved in directly sexually abusing children and appealed for potential witnesses to come forward.

The court heard how the retiree had “painstakingly categorised” the images and made lists of the best websites to access sexual pictures and videos of children. Some of the material was listed under headings such as “animal abuse”, “peach Asian street meat” and “young Russian brother and sister”.

Prosecutors said Crossland had demonstrated a “longstanding interest in children”, with the earliest images dating back to 1998. The cache included 34,612 images classes as category A, the most extreme, and 2,107,873 in category C, the least extreme.

The Crown Prosecution Service said the haul was one of the largest known in England and Wales, and North Yorkshire police described it as the biggest quantity to be seized in the country.

The material was discovered when officers searched Crossland’s farmhouse in October last year. They also found what was described as a secret underground bunker containing nine guns and 24,000 rounds of ammunition. The facility was formed of old shipping containers and included a shooting range and an area designed for making ammunition.

The court heard that Crossland’s wife answered the door when officers arrived to search the property, while the defendant was on a shooting holiday in Argentina. He was arrested at Heathrow airport and refused to answer any questions in police interviews.

Marc Horsfall, of the National Crime Agency, said a team of specially trained officers had spent months analysing Crossland’s “horrific catalogue” to grade their severity.

He said: “Crossland and men like him are fuelling the actual contact abuse of children and the sickening distribution of those images. The NCA works with partners at home and abroad to catch child sex offenders and bring them to justice.”

Julian Briggs, from the CPS, said the sheer quantity and nature of the material was deeply shocking. “That alone would make this case extraordinary and troubling,” he said.

“But the subsequent discovery of prohibited firearms and ammunition, concealed in underground bunkers at Crossland’s home clearly shows that this defendant is a highly dangerous individual. The sentence handed down today indicates the severity of Crossland’s offending.”