John Coulter faces Ballarat County Court for possession of more than half a million files of child abuse material

A Victorian man living in “squalid” conditions obsessively gathered an “enormous” and “disgraceful” child abuse material collection.

Victorian man John Coulter, 65, was found in possession of more than half a million child abuse files.

A Victorian man found with a “truly astonishing” and “enormous” amount of child abuse material claimed he was collecting “artistic erotica”.

Manufacturing worker John Coulter, 65, was jailed for four years at the Ballarat County Court on December 12 after pleading guilty to possessing child abuse material.

After completing a search of Coulter’s home on March 27 this year, police found on various devices 787,476 child abuse images and video

Nearly 645,000 files were pictures of real pre-pubescent children under the age of 13, and more than 127,000 were images of children who were, or appeared to be, under 18.

More than 15,000 videos were also among the material.

Coulter told officers who attended his home that he had expected them and that they would “find what they were looking for”.

He declined to answer questions when initially interviewed.

The court heard Coulter had a difficult and unhappy childhood, and was a “precocious child” with “sophisticated and diverse interests” who did not fit in with his peers.

Coulter was sentenced at Ballarat County Court on December 12.

Judge Anne Hassan described him as an “isolated individual” living in “squalid” conditions while drinking and taking medicine to deal with chronic pain at the time of the offending.

Coulter, who was said to have a major depressive disorder, resisted suggestions he was attracted to underage girls and emphasised his attraction was to “artistic erotica”, which he sourced, collected, and filed.

The court heard he was driven by “deviant and pedophilic interests”, becoming “obsessional” partly due to his personality.

Judge Hassan said Coulter behaved in a “disgraceful” way and that his offending was “not a victimless crime”.

“You must understand that your offending involves the abuse of countless vulnerable children,” she said.

“It is impossible to say how many children were your victims.

“These children are your victims not because you yourself abused them, but you watched their abuse, and in this way your consumption fuelled the market in the production of child abuse material.”

Coulter must serve a minimum non-parole period of two years with 260 days already served.