A FORMER Eltham College teacher was jailed for 21 months today after admitting possessing more than 87,000 pornographic photographs and movies of children.

Woolwich Crown Court heard how Andrew Hillary, aged 51, was arrested by police last August while on a school trip to Edinburgh.

He admitted owning child pornography and accompanied officers back to London where they seized a computer, hard drive, USB sticks and DVDs from his home, unearthing a host of vile images showing young boys being abused.

One piece of film was titled "bed bondage boy" and others showed children wearing gags and blindfolds while performing sex acts with men.

In all, police found 83,203 photographs and a further 4,079 moving images, including many of Level 4 and 5 classification - the most serious kind of indecent material.

Lawyer Ian Jobling said in mitigation that his client had been an "inspirational" teacher for 20 years, keeping his personal interests and professional life separate.

But he said Hillary had been drawn "deeper and deeper" into a child pornography obsession, downloading thousands of images and swapping them in online chat rooms with other users.

He said: "There was a sense of relief within himself that what had come to be an addiction had been exposed and it was going to end."

In court today, the design and technology teacher admitted 15 counts of making an indecent photograph, two of possession and a further four counts of distribution.

Sentencing him, Judge Christopher Kinch said: "The fact is that a download of indecent photographs encourages the illegal trade exploiting young children by those who actually carry out the primary exercise of producing these images."

The judge said: "You've lost not just your employment but your home and your hitherto unblemished character all lie in ruins. That's the position to which you've brought yourself."

He was sentenced to 21 months for distribution of a Level 4 image and given concurrent sentences ranging from six to 18 months for the other offences.

Hillary, who left the private school in Grove Park Road, Mottingham, last summer and moved to Southsea, Hampshire, was banned from teaching last month at a professional conduct hearing.

He was also given a sexual offences prevention order, stopping him from having unsupervised contact with children.