A paedophile collected more than 1,500 indecent images on an iPhone he kept hidden away under the floorboards of his bedroom.
When caught out, Daniel Middlehurst claimed that he had been gathering the sick images and videos - which showed girls aged as young as four being sexually abused - on behalf of the police. Officers also found pairs of girls' underwear stashed under his mattress when they raided his home in St Helens.
Liverpool Crown Court heard today, Friday, that the National Crime Agency alerted Merseyside Police to suspect IP addresses linked to the property on Shaw Street. Officers executed a search warrant on December 4 last year, at which point Middlehurst "denied any material was present".
