A DISGRACED North Yorkshire man is facing a prison sentence after pleading guilty to child pornography offences.

Kevin Payne, 48, admitted making 15 indecent photographs of children, which he downloaded from the internet and then filed at his home, in Homewood Park Lane, Barlow, near Selby.

Selby magistrates said their powers were insufficient and sent him to York Crown Court for sentence. Payne, a married man and currently a student at Selby College, will now automatically go on to the sex offenders' register.

Louise Reevell, prosecuting, said the offences took place between July 2001 and November 2002. On November 13, police executed a search warrant at the defendant's home after being tipped off by FBI detectives.

As part of the worldwide Operation Ore, the FBI team tracked down thousands of buyers of child pornography on US websites.

Miss Reevell said Selby police seized two computers from Payne's home, one of which was a laptop. Payne told detectives that adult porn would be found on his laptop, but not child porn.

But when police experts analysed the computer's hard drive, they found still images and movies of children engaged in sexual activities.

On a level of one to five, nine of the images were either at level 3 or 4.

Linda Wood, mitigating, said Payne had sought help for what he considered "a problem", and had also taken steps to rehabilitate himself into the community. She said: "The way forward for him is by receiving a community penalty so he can get the help he needs. It wouldn't be a soft option."

Selby-based Detective Constable John Lintott said after the hearing: "These images were all in files and there is a history of him having access to these files on a regular basis." Payne was given unconditional bail until his appearance at York Crown Court on June 23.

Operation Ore has uncovered an estimated 7,000 suspected paedophiles in the UK, all believed to have been credit card subscribers to US child porn websites. One of them was William Chilton, of North Duffield, who in January this year was jailed for four months after 99 indecent images of children were found on the hard drive of his computer. Chilton, 53, a married father and science teacher at Selby High School, admitted viewing child pornography on a regular basis until shortly before his arrest.

Updated: 10:46 Thursday, May 29, 2003