A COMPANY director who downloaded thousands of images of child abuse blamed his behaviour on the “pressures of business”.

Ian Doig, the director of a recruitment firm for the IT industry, used a file-sharing website to download more than 18,000 still images and hundreds of moving images of teenage girls during a 21-month period.

The 50-year-old also said he had become curious after reading a news article that mentioned a file sharing website.

He had started to view the images when his business struggled in the recent economic depression, Winchester Crown Court heard.

Doig was in the dock for sentence last Thursday having admitted 14 counts of possession of making indecent photographs of children.

Officers called at Doig’s home, in Gaiger Avenue, Sherfield-on-Loddon, in June last year, after gaining information based on his internet use.

After initially denying all knowledge, Doig admitted having the images and was arrested. A laptop, a computer tower unit and two hard disk drives were seized.

Most of the images found were graded category C, the third worst category for such images. Officers also found Doig had used search terms such as “red Lolita” and “Girls 12 YO”.

Carolyn Branford-Wood, prosecuting, said: “During the course of the interview he wanted to make it clear that he was not a child molester or a paedophile.

“He accepted it was a stupid thing he had done but blamed it on the pressures of business and it was initially light-hearted fun but became a stupid habit.”

Jeremy Lynn, defending, said his client had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and had sought counselling from the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, the child protection charity.

He also said his client had downloaded the material in bulk, without having previewed all of the files.

But while Judge Susan Evans accepted this, she said one of the videos, a 13-minute clip of the sexual abuse of a teenage girl, was of the most serious category.

She said: “They’re created for a market and you were that market so you, amongst others, were responsible for the assaulting of the child and other children.”

She handed Doig a 36-month community order, ordered him to attend a sexual offender treatment programme and pay £800 in court costs.

He was also made subject of a sexual harm prevention order for five years.