A man dubbed by police as Ireland’s worst child pornographer is awaiting sentence and psychiatric evaluation after he was found guilty at a Dublin court.

James Clarke was convicted after officers found more than 130,000 images and videos found on his computer.

The Irish Times reports that these included images showing severe child sex abuse involving bondage, cruelty, and bestiality.

The report says the material was organised into computer folders by themes and individuals and Clarke had offered the images to other users via an internet site.

The 58-year-old, from County Mayo, pleaded guilty to four counts of knowingly distributing child pornography at a Tallaght address on separate dates in August 2010.

He also pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography at the same address.

Detective Cathal Delaney told prosecutor Fiona McGowan, “The files found on his computer drives constituted the largest collection of child porn I have ever found up to that date.

“The materials included sexual activity involving children with children, children with adults and children with animals. Some of the victims were infants.”

The detective told the court that Clarke was using Gigatribe, a legitimate social networking site, to distribute the images.

The Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard Clarke would restrict access to his files to other users who were sharing files.

The officer said warnings about sharing files and an invitation to others to ‘enjoy the files you use’ was repeated in a number of languages.

He also said Clarke used an email account to contact a woman about keeping her and her 14-year-old daughter as sex slaves.

The court heard that Clarke’s computer drives held a total of 133,563 images and 1,992 videos of child pornography.

Clarke has a conviction for sex with a minor in 1977. His lawyer Kitty Perle said Clarke claimed he was only aged about 20 at the time and the girl was 14.

She also said that her client had previously suffered from depression and had attempted suicide a number of times.

She told the court that Clarke overcame his depression and set up a security firm but a road incident in 2003 was another setback and he began spending ‘many many hours’ on the computer.

The lawyer said he began browsing adult pornography, which led him to child images, and this quickly got out of control.

Judge Patricia Ryan remarked on the seriousness of the case and ordered a psychiatric report. She remanded Clarke in custody at Arbour Hill for sentencing on October 26th.