James Speers, 41, a former Sunday School teacher, was recently jailed for downloading more than 54,000 images of children being sexually abused.

Belfast Crown Court heard it was the highest number of indecent images ever found in an individual's possession in Northern Ireland.

The computer technician was caught when his employers at the University of Ulster became suspicious.

Speaking last week a cousin said: "When I think about what he has done the thought of it makes me sick."

Speers who was sentenced on Friday, July 13, was also banned for life from going within 50m of schools and play areas.

The sex fiend has already served nine months in prison after being remanded in custody last September, so he will be walking the streets again by 2012.

Speers' cousin, who asked not to be named, said his despicable actions had brought shame on the family.

"I feel really nauseated. It's disgusting," he said.

"I have two young boys and I'm annoyed that my kids and I were ever in the same room as him.

“I am disgusted. He was actually a Sunday School teacher in one of the local churches."

The family member said he was ‘shocked and angered’ when he learned it was his own cousin who had been jailed for committing child sex offences.

"We didn't know anything about it until we read the papers," he continued.

"You just don't expect to find out that a member of your own family is capable of something so despicable.

"When he was first arrested he told his mother he had been downloading music illegally and using ebay fraudulently."

His cousin, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his young sons, described Speers, who is the the eldest of five children, as "a loner".

"I used to stay at his mother's house when I was young," he said.

"He was a homebird, always in the house on his computer.

“I last saw him when I was down visiting my aunt with my kids last summer. He was in the room."

The family member added: "I wanted to speak out because children need to be protected from sex fiends like Speers."