I'm changing a few details, as this is very identifiable, but the child of an old family friend was caught a few years ago with thousands of images, most of them in the most severe category. Somehow, he ended up with a suspended sentence, despite having a very responsible job where he would indeed come into contact with children. There was no suggestion that he had abused the children he had access to, but the only reason he was removed from his professional organisation was because he expressed no remorse and felt he hadn't committed a crime.
I don't know that child (who is now of retirement age) very well at all, but I strongly suspect that the reason there was no custodial sentence was because he would have been able to afford excellent legal representation: if you can't see what's wrong with possessing indecent images of children, the commodification of child abuse, and that your actions in purchasing such images lead to harm to children, I am afraid that I don't think it's suitable for you to live your life freely within the community without having served a prison sentence.
Anyone found guilty of possessing indecent images of children should absolutely have a prison sentence attached.
There's quite an interesting thing on BBC iplayer atm, btw, about Cybersex and the Phillipines: it's one of the Stacey Dooley ones, so it's not highbrow and aimed at a young adult audience, but there was a staggering case on there where the police "created" a child robot to interact with men looking to abuse children online/webcam. They gave police in Europe and N America over 1000 names and addresses of people who had committed cyber-sex offences against children as a result of this operation - so far (which was over a year later iirc) this has resulted in only 3 prosecutions.