A MANAGER at a Dorchester hotel was jailed for four years after police found 10,000 child abuse images on a computer stuffed in his fireplace.

Christopher Melton, 27, who was working at The White Hart, was in a 200-strong Internet ring of paedophiles who swapped sickening images of babies and toddlers suffering abuse.

Judge Michael Gledhill branded the actions of Melton and his associate Benjamin Heathcote-Smith, 25, as “filthy and depraved” when he sentenced them at Southwark Crown Court, London, last Wednesday.

Melton used an online alias ‘Bobby’ to amass a collection of 10,385 child abuse images — 2,400 of them in the most serious categories.

The worldwide paedophile ring’s members were highly security-conscious, only inviting people recommended by known paedophiles to join.

But police swooped on the hotel manager after Heathcote-Smith’s house was raided in March, and he admitted regular telephone contact with Melton.

Prosecutor Peter Zinner said: “He was so specific about Mr Melton that he could tell police that he was in the habit of hiding his external hard drive in his fireplace . . . (He said) he was always online and was prolific in this sort of activity.”

In inteview, Melton denied possessing any images of babies or toddlers, but the court heard some of the images on his computer included children being tortured.

After being caught, Melton tried to commit suicide.

Melton, of Branston, Lincolnshire, admitted conspiracy to distribute indecent images, ten counts of making indecent images of children, and one of possessing indecent images of children.

Heathcote-Smith, who had 75,050 indecent images of children on his computer, was jailed for five years for admitting a string of child pornography charges, including inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.

Both men will be placed on the sexual offenders’ register for life and upon their release, will be banned from using computers or being alone with any unaccompanied children under the age of 16.

Judge Gledhill said: “Every single child that was shown in those pictures is a victim of serious sexual and physical abuse.

“They are not dolls — they are real people — and it is an aggravating feature of this case that in order for those babies and young children to be abused, those images must have been created with the help and connivance of those entrusted with their care.”

He said that both paedophiles came from good families.

He said: “You might well have been lonely and isolated, and you may well have had financial difficulties — your lives were not going in the way that you might have hoped. That could be said for countless thousands of people in this county who do not resort to using computers to access this dreadful material.”