A man who insisted he would “swear on the Bible that he’s not into child porn” was jailed for the equivalent of four years Wednesday in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Jeffrey McCartney, 51, was caught with almost 20,000 images and 350 videos of child sexual abuse on two computers and two memory sticks seized by police in October 2010.

He was sitting on a couch downloading pictures when officers arrested him at the Kitchener home he shared with his wife and teenage son.

At the time, McCartney was already on probation for a previous conviction for possession of child pornography and other offences.

A high-risk probation officer told Kitchener court during a sentencing hearing that he did poorly in counselling because he wouldn’t take responsibility for his crimes.

And in an emotional, rambling address to the judge, McCartney said his huge stash of “gross” images didn’t mean he has a deviant sexual interest in kids.

The images were primarily of boys between infancy and 16 years of age engaged in sexual acts with men, although some showed young girls as well.

McCartney — who went by the computer user name Eagle Boy — downloaded the pictures and videos from the internet and stored hundreds in file folders so they could be accessed by others.

As a result, he pleaded guilty to both possession and distribution of child pornography.

The investigation began when American authorities notified the Child Exploitation Centre in Ottawa of a man downloading images from a pornographic website.

Around the same time, police in Niagara received a complaint from a teenager who found links to child porn after accepting an invitation from McCartney to become his Facebook friend.

McCartney’s lengthy record is mostly for petty crimes such as theft, but also includes convictions related to juvenile prostitution and criminal harassment.

He was found guilty more than 30 years ago of indecent assault and gross indecency, and got a 17-month jail sentence in 1995 for a hit-and-run crash that killed a six-year-old Cambridge boy.

A criminal harassment conviction in 2009 involved dozens of text messages and threatening voice messages he sent to a much younger boyfriend who broke off their relationship over an alleged threesome with a 16-year-old boy.

Justice Sharon Nicklas found that the nature and volume of pornography involved in McCartney’s latest crimes required a substantial prison term to denounce and deter such conduct.

With credit for time already spent in custody, he has three years left to serve.