Manchester Crown Court heard that 50-year-old Anthony Jolly, of Rosa Grove in Higher Broughton, was a serial offender who regularly took photos of children playing outside his house.
Jolly was arrested after he left a memory card packed full of indecent images of children on a bus in Eccles in October last year.
The card was picked up by a member of the public who was horrified to find the stash of pictures when they plugged it into their home laptop in a bid to identify the owner.
Police were able to trace the pictures back to Jolly’s home address in Higher Broughton where he was arrested and a number of electronic devices were seized.
Forensic examination of the devices found thousands of indecent images of children.
Detective Constable Jill Vescovi said: “Anthony Jolly is a depraved predator who obviously doesn’t care and hasn’t given a second thought to the children in the images he kept and the impact this abuse will have had on their lives.
“Whilst none of the children who appear in the indecent images were directly abused by Jolly, the downloading and sharing of vile images like this fuel the trade of child sexual abuse.
“Putting a stop to the abuse of children is an absolute top priority for us and we will continue to work tirelessly to make sure that anybody who is involved in the production, sale, downloading or sharing of images like this is brought to justice.”
