The head of a massive West Midlands child pornography network has been jailed for three years and nine months for making, distributing and possessing more than 2,000 sickening images.

Oliver Smith (39) traded "vile" pictures of children as young as three-months-old with more than 630 people across the UK.

A jury at Birmingham Crown Court took just over half an hour to find Smith, formerly of Rotherfield Road, Sheldon, guilty of four charges of making indecent photos, four of distributing, and two of possessing them.

Smith had previously bragged that four other "traders" in the region had received jail sentences of between four and 18 months.

The court heard he had sent 1,848 pictures and film clips - ranging from naked children to images of bestiality - to 637 people by email.

The longest sentence Smith could have received, under a process which grades the seriousness of the images, was four years in jail.

Speaking outside court, Detective Inspector Alison Telford, of West Midlands Police's High Tech Crime and Paedophile Unit, said as a result of Smith's arrest and conviction, a further 1,051 suspects had been identified in the UK, North America, Canada and Europe.

"As a distributor, and the chain we have got from him, this is the biggest case in the UK up to now," she said. "We are pleased with the conviction but this is only the tip of the iceberg.

"The evidence against Smith was very strong and his defence was very weak - which was basically 'It wasn't me'.

"'Only looking' is not a good enough defence, because what he was looking at was physically and sexually abusive material which was filmed for the benefit of people like him."

Detectives caught Smith after they received a package from Dorset Police who had seized a computer from an offender.

Det Insp Telford said: "On his computer we found Smith, who had been supplying him with images.

"He was arrested at an address in London on January 13, 2005, and a warrant was then executed at his former home in Sheldon."

Smith had lived in Sheldon with his wife, son and mother-in-law before separating from his wife in 2003. He moved to London, where worked as a licensee, after meeting his new partner through an internet chat room.

The police search found 2,114 obscene images of children stored on a computer he used in his son's bedroom, and films were recovered from a series of floppy discs.

Smith denied all the charges and having any knowledge of the shocking images. He suggested his computer might have been hacked into.

Det Insp Telford explained: "He suggested that a hacker had sent a 'Trojan' programme to his computer, through an email attachment. Once that attachment is opened it allows the hacker to communicate with the other computer.

"Smith claimed that somebody must have downloaded these images using a Trojan, but given the volume of images and the time it would take to download that's unlikely."

In passing sentence, Judge Phillip Gregory said: "I cannot describe the utter vileness of the photos you considered it appropriate to investigate, download onto your computer, store, and distribute to other like-minded people interested in such gross sexual contact with young children."

He said the children shown in the photos could suffer "tremendous and life-lasting damage" and those involved in the trading of pictures would receive substantial custodial sentences.