When he was arrested Maurizio Torchia told officers that there were no such images on his computer - but they were to find that this was because he had transferred them onto CDs.
And at Warwick Crown Court Torchia (47) of Frances Havergal Close, Leamington, was jailed for nine months after he admitted making indecent images and asked for four other offences to be taken into consideration.
Torchia was also ordered to register as a sex offender for ten years, disqualified from doing paid or unpaid work with children and restrained from buying, possessing or using any computer capable of downloading images.
Prosecutor Tim Pole said that as a result of the complaint by Torchia's daughter the police raided his home in April last year and seized his computer hard drives and a number of CDs.
when he was questioned he vehemently denied that there would be any indecent images on his computer, and insisted that the only images were of an adult nature.
The hard drives were examined by police experts who, as he had claimed, found 135 downloaded and filed titles, but there were no child porn images amongst them, so the hard drives were returned to Torchia.
He was questioned again later in the year and again denied downloading any indecent images of children.
But the police then went on to examine six of the CDs, on which they found a total of 436 child porn images, of which 67 were classed as level three, showing non-penetrative sexual activity between adults and children.
A further 66 were of level four, showing penetrative activity, and when he looked at some of these images, as the Court of Appeal has said judges should do, Judge James Pyke observed that two of the girls were clearly 'very young'.
Mr Pole said that the girls in the images, who were also subjected to anal intercourse, were aged from six to twelve.
Despite that clear evidence, Torchia continued to deny the offences and pleaded not guilty when he first arrived at the court, but later changed his pleas to guilty.
His barrister Andrew Smith said that the basis of Torchia's pleas were that he was storing the images for later viewing, and that he had the sole access to them.
"Mr Torchia accepts that, inevitably, a prison sentence will follow today, but I submit that he can be given significant credit for his pleas.
"Mr Torchia recognises that there were a number of images of level four, and he expresses genuine remorse for the position he finds himself in.
"It was never his intention that matters should reach this level. His involvement began as one of curiosity and many of the images he had stored were not ones which he had viewed prior to his arrest."
Mr Smith added that as a result of the conviction Torchia will be dismissed from his job at a hospital which brings him into contact with patients of all ages.
Judge Pyke told Torchia: "The counts reflect a total of 436 pornographic images of children which you downloaded onto your computer and stored for future viewing.
"I have been shown representative images which clearly include very young girls, and in one a young girl in obvious distress.
"Those such as yourself who provide a market for the kind of material has been required to view, and which leads inevitably to the abuse and degradation of children, must bear their share of the reponsibility for that."