A convicted killer on licence after attacking a man he thought was a paedophile has himself been jailed for child sex offences.

John Shaw, from Margate, is said to have "saturated" himself in extreme levels of child pornography.

The 58-year-old was handed 20 months behind bars today after pleading guilty to a total of 15 offences.

They involved possessing and making child pornography, one count of distribution and three of possessing extreme pornographic images.

When Shaw appeared for sentence at Canterbury Crown Court he was already in custody having been recalled on a life licence from a manslaughter conviction in 1979.

He and another had attacked a third man they believed was a paedophile.

Prosecutor Denzil Pugh said police became aware of Shaw via internet user sharing sites.

Officers raided Shaw's home at Balmoral Road and seized a computer and memory sticks and found over 1,000 images ranging from levels one to five.

There were 237 indecent movies of children as well as 62 movies of extreme pornography involving animals.

When interviewed, Shaw did not deny his activities and said he had become involved through chat rooms and internet sharing sites and found he was receiving material relating to young children.

He confirmed he had sent one email containing images and he got sexual gratification from looking at such images.

He said he regarded them and the extreme pornography as sexy images.

In total there were £1,426 images of which over 400 were at the most serious levels four and five.

The 237 movies also involved all five levels, the highest number, 134, at level four.

Running time for the movies was over 29 hours and the extreme movies ran for nearly six hours.

John O'Higgins, for Shaw, said it was accepted they were serious offences.

Up to 1979 Shaw had an unattractive record being involved in drink and drugs and effectively homeless and got into a fight at a hostel in which the man died.

He was released in 1992 and worked on the railways and as a chef and he kept out of trouble.

Mr O'Higgins said Shaw's interest was vouyeristic rather than direct acts against children and he had expressed concerns about his interest.

"He recognises this kid of activity is completely unacceptable, there is real insight and real remorse," said Mr O'Higgins.

He said the distribution was small scale and asked for credit for Shaw's full admissions.

Jailing Shaw, Judge James O'Mahony said in January it was discovered Shaw had for a long time saturted himself in extreme levels of pornography involving real children being abused at very young ages and at the most serious and prolific level.

"I accept you told the police you had a sexual attraction for children and it is important you accept it yourself because some offenders do not.

"You maintain a stances which I cannot conclude is wrong that that attraction is voyeuristic in tendency and not likely to lead to physical assault of children.

"But it remains the case that in your current sate of mind in terms of sexuality, there is indirectly a real risk of children being abused in the future by you.

"It may be indirectly because you have dmonstrates a complusion to get sexual gratification from tyhis material and while there are people around who do that, more children will be deseperatly abused."

Shaw will be subject to a sex offences prevention order for 10 years and on the sex offenders register.

Detective Inspector Matthew Long, from Kent Police's Public Protection Unit, said: "Public protection is a priority for Kent Police.

"There is no excuse for downloading and viewing indecent images of children, images which contain children suffering real abuse."