A perverted former Foreign Office IT consultant who sought out “unimaginable” live videos of abuse has been jailed for five and a half years.

Colin Grant, 51, of Nether Street, Abbess Roding, Ongar, also pretended to be a teenage girl and incited a total of 13 teenage boys to send him photos of themselves.

When police learned he was watching sexual abuse in real time, they raided his house, then in Leaden Close, Leaden Roding and arrested him. Investigations into him had stretched as far away as Australia and the US.

Prosecutor Marc Brown told Chelmsford Crown Court of the horrors found on Grant’s computer.

“On his laptop were the worst imaginable kinds of images,” he said.

He added that there was a sequence of films showing the same child being abused over two years from the age of four. “She looks older, a bit more beaten. She’s in dirty conditions, dirty hair, blemishes on her skin.

“There’s an image where she’s made to hold up a sign in which the date is set out, Sunday 15 May 2016, in order to confirm that the abuse is ongoing at that time.”

Grant actually sent an image to a covert police officer he was talking to online, which prompted police to move in and arrest him.

When Grant’s computer was examined it was discovered that he “deliberately sought out” abuse with time and date attached.

The prosecutor said Grant would sexually chat to adolescent boys online using the name Sally Moll, persuading them to use Skype and encouraging them to send him images. Nearly all 13 were in the US and one was in the UK.

The live image which prompted rapid police response came from Australia.

Judge Patricia Lynch QC jailed Grant for a total of five and a half years after he pleaded guilty to 18 counts. They included inciting boys aged 13 to 15 to engage in sexual activity; possessing or making 932 indecent images of children both movies and still; and distributing an indecent image. The offences happened between 2013 and 20 May 2016, when he was arrested.

Judge Lynch was told Grant’s life had spiralled downwards from 2013 because of a series of major illnesses and family troubles. He moved on from watching adult pornography to child abuse. He lost his Foreign Office contract in January 2015.

As she passed sentence the judge told Grant she wanted him to look at the seriousness of this type of offending by comparing his own hardships “terrible as they were” to the pain the children had suffered.

She continued: “It’s my job to make sure that people who encourage that sort of behaviour are punished.”

She added that child pornography was “a wicked, filthy trade” and said that Grant had “crossed the Rubicon between viewing material to actually contacting children.”

In addition to the jail sentence she also imposed a sexual harm prevention order, restricting and monitoring Grant’s internet use, for ten years and ordered him to sign the sex offenders’ register for ten years.

Grant’s wife, children and elderly parents filled the public gallery to see him sentenced.

Mitigating, Diana Wilson said: “He was a decent, upstanding member of the community and got so far away from who he was, what he was and the truth and the right that he was.”

She said a series of family ill-health and problems began in 2013. He had worked at the Foreign Officer, vetted for security, as an IT trainer from 2009 to 2015.

“His difficulties resulted in a spiral down. The level of stress he was under caused him to go from the decent man to someone so cold and unempathetic as to commit these offences.”

Days after his arrest, Grant tried to commit suicide, she added.

“He accepts what he did was disturbing and disgusting and is truly sorry.”