An Ipswich shopkeeper has been jailed for two years after being caught with indecent images of children for a third time.

David Davenport used "devious and manipulative" tactics to dodge restrictions preventing him from deleting the browsing history on his home computer devices.

The 63-year-old, of Hawthorn Drive, tried claiming he used adult pornography to "relieve stress" and had "pushed the boundaries" of a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) imposed for previous offences.

Davenport had denied breaching the order until the day of his trial in January, when he admitted the offence, along with making one indecent image of a child in the most serious level A category, one at level B and two at level C.

He even submitted a 'statement of innocence' to Ipswich Crown Court before sentencing, but retracted it and accepted guilt at the eleventh hour on Wednesday.

Davenport was first convicted of possessing indecent images in his former home jurisdiction of Manchester in 2005.

In July 2011, he appeared before magistrates in Suffolk to admit another two offences, after being found with more than 180 indecent images of children.

He was handed a six-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, and banned from owning devices without the capability of displaying an internet history.

In April 2018, public protection officers visited Davenport's home to examine his devices and found no evidence of any pornographic websites being visited.

Upon further enquiry, Davenport admitted viewing adult pornography and running the QtWeb portable web browser via a USB drive to his computer.

Prosecutor Nicola May said further examination revealed two SD cards configured with software to enable private browsing, while an HP tower was found to contain the four deleted indecent images.

In total, Davenport had used web browsing software on 97 occasions between November 2017 and the day of his arrest.

He told police his mental health had been in decline for 15 years and that he viewed adult 'teen' pornography to deal with stress, but used a portable browser to avoid contaminating his computer.

Gavin Burrell, mitigating, said jail would spell the demise of Davenport's already ailing business, impact on the finances of his wife and her family in Vietnam and prevent further rehabilitation in the community.

Judge Rupert Overbury said Davenport had wasted court time and public money by pursuing a non-existent defence and a basis of plea that he had lawfully "pushed the boundaries" of the SHPO.

He said it was his job to protect the public by jailing Davenport for a "deliberate and flagrant" breach of the order, which he extended to last another 10 years.