The Wodonga Magistrates Court heard Anthony Paul Wood, 63, is likely to struggle behind bars after being sentenced to at least a year in prison this week.

The short, slim and balding Athol Street resident had so many images and videos, it would have taken multiple police officers months to sort them into categories.

The 63-year-old came unstuck when his Dell laptop died.

He took it into a Wilson Street repair business on October 9 last year.

A technician looked at the device the following day and cloned the computer’s hard drive, leading to suspect images being found.

Police were contacted and looked over the files, which covered a range of categories.

His home was searched and 13 further items seized for examination, including hard drives, CDs and a phone.

The property was examined by the sex offence unit at Wangaratta.

There were so many child porn files, police could only examine about 3 per cent to get a representative sample.

The court heard officers can only view the content for four hours at a time due to occupational health and safety rules.

The images and videos covered all categories, including adults sexually penetrating children and acts of sadism against minors.

Wood had folders labelled “under 12” and “under six”.

The 63-year-old, who sat in court in blue jeans and a blue hoodie, holding a Carlton Football Club hat, pleaded guilty to a charge of knowingly possessing child abuse material and failing to answer bail.

Lawyer Mario Vaccaro said his client would be vulnerable in jail and argued for a corrections order.

Magistrate Ian Watkins said it was important to deter others from such offending.

“Viewing these images on a computer is not a victimless crime,” he said.

“In my view, the only appropriate sentence in this matter is imprisonment.”

Mr Watkins said Wood had been involved in the exploitation of those depicted by downloading the material.

The court heard he had a low IQ and intellectual problems, but the magistrate said he was concerned a psychologist had found him to be of high risk of re-offending. 

He imposed a maximum 18-month jail term.