An Alberta man who admitted to years of hands-on sexual contact with four young boys has been sentenced to more than 16 years in prison.

Stuart Peter Hunt, a 55-year-old Red Deer resident, was sentenced Monday following guilty pleas to making, accessing and distributing child pornography, as well as sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching and sexual assault.

Police seized cellphones, computers and a publication described as a handbook for predators to exploit children when Hunt was arrested in January 2017 at his home, where officers also discovered a hidden camera.

The court heard he possessed a child porn collection featuring thousands of images and videos of boys as young as toddlers.

He later admitted to police that he had sexual contact with the four boys between 1996 and 2005 while he was living in Oyen, Alta.

High risk to reoffend

Provincial court Judge James Glass gave Hunt 16-and-a-half years behind bars, but with pre-trial custody taken into account his sentence will be just over 11 years.

Glass cited a psychiatric assessment which concluded Hunt meets the criteria for a pedophilia diagnosis, that he suffers from cannabis use disorder, shows prominent traits of avoidant personality disorder and is a high risk to reoffend.

The judge noted his confessions to police and early guilty pleas as mitigating factors.

The Crown had sought a 12-year sentence, citing aggravating factors in the case including the size and depravity of Hunt's child porn collection, the ages of the children depicted and the duration of time over which the material was collected.

The defence had argued for a 10-year term.

The investigation into Hunt's activities began with a tip from the RCMP's National Child Exploitation Co-ordination Centre.

Investigators identified a number of victims who were known to the accused, but they believed there could be more dating back 20 years.

Police said at the time of Hunt's arrest that he was not employed in a position of trust or authority, but had ties to the communities of Oyen, Three Hills, Sylvan Lake and Didsbury.

Hunt apologized to his victims during a sentencing hearing in October, saying he was "extremely ashamed and remorseful" for his actions.