DESCRIBED by his defence solicitor as an 'unpleasant' case, a Fishguard man has admitted distributing and possessing indecent pictures of children.

Before Haverfordwest magistrates last week, Neil Andrew Ahearne pleaded guilty to possessing 19 indecent photos/pseudo photos of children, between November 2002 and May 2004.

The pictures, found on the defendant's computer hard-drive and floppy disk, ranged from categories one to four, with five being the most serious.

The 40-year-old, who lives at 29 Gwelfor, also pleaded guilty to distributing a category three picture via e-mail on August 17th this year.

In accepting jurisdiction of the case, magistrates were given graphic details of all indecent images recovered, one of which included a child between the age of three and five, involved in a sexual act with an adult.

Defending, Mark Layton told the court that in serious cases such as this one a very real and significant credit should be given for an early guilty plea.

"Mr Ahearne has been using the internet over a number of years," said Mr Layton.

"He entered some chat rooms that were of an adult nature and communicated with some people who sent large numbers, 20 or so pictures, to people contributing to the chatroom. He was posted, over the course of four years, many hundreds of pornographic photos and, occasionally, pictures of children in the teenage bracket.

"It was Mr Ahearne's policy to look through these photos and when they appeared to be of children under the age of consenting adults, delete them. And those are the pictures that were recovered from the hard drive."

Although Mr Layton said his client was unaware the e-mail he'd sent was of a child, he admitted Ahearne had been foolish and reckless, knowing those types of images had come into his possession in the past.

The case was adjourned until November 3rd for pre-sentence reports to be made and magistrates told Mr Ahearne, who was released on conditional bail, that custody was certainly an option.