August 1999 Gulf War veteran jailed for nearly 250,000 child abuse images A Gulf War veteran was jailed for two-and-a-half years after being found guilty of possessing almost a quarter of a million images of child abuse images downloaded from the Net. Former Royal Navy communications engineer Andrew Mein, 43, of Leigh Park near Havant, was convicted at Portsmouth Crown Court in what police believe is the largest stash of its kind.   Sentencing the paedophile, Judge Tom MacKean said he was satisfied that Mein did not accumulate the material to distribute. Unlike many sex offenders, Mein was not part of a paedophile ring but used the images for his own perverted pleasure. “We believe this to be the largest seizure of child images from the Internet in this country,” PC Mick Brown, of Hampshire Police’s vice squad, told the Portsmouth News. Mein claimed that his kiddie porn habit only started because he suffered a “character change” after fighting in the Gulf War. Mein has been placed on the sex offenders register for ten years and had all his computer equipment destroyed