A FAMILY man had almost 700 indecent images of children on his computer which he had downloaded from the Internet, a court heard yesterday.

Police made the discovery after seizing computer equipment during a raid at Francis William Mingay's home in Ripon, North Yorkshire.

Officers swooped on Mingay's home in Southgate Avenue, in December last year as part of Operation Ore, a trans-Atlantic investigation into pornography involving children under 16.

Harrogate magistrates heard that Mingay, 47, told police in interview the next day he could not remember subscribing to American-based Internet sites and did not believe there were any indecent photographs stored on his computer. But he admitted there were indecent adult images.

Peter Scott, prosecuting, told magistrates that the seized equipment revealed 691 indecent images of children, most of them stored on five CD ROMs.

Nine of the images had been identified as level three on an abuse scale of one to five and one was categorised as level four. The vast majority were at the lower end of the scale.

The images came from ten different child porn sites to which Mingay had subscribed.

Mr Scott said Mingay was interviewed by police again in March when he told them he initially accessed adult porn sites and then subscribed to others trading in child porn. He said the images had given him "great pleasure" but he had not gained sexual satisfaction from them.

Mingay pleaded guilty to ten charges of making an indecent photograph of a child at Ripon between March 1999 and December last year and one of possession of an indecent photograph.

Geoffrey Rogers, for Mingay, said his client had only downloaded the pictures and had not shown anyone. Of the 691 seized, 654 were at the lowest level, he said.

The hearing was adjourned until August 20 for probation reports. Mingay was released on police bail