A 38-year-old Ramsey man has admitted possessing thousands of indecent images of children collected over a 16-year period.

Daniel Paul Ashenden also admitted distributing seven indecent images of a child.

He pleaded guilty to 11 counts of the offence and will be sentenced at the Court of General Gaol Delivery.

Prosecuting advocate Roger Kane told the court that a search warrant was executed at Ashenden’s home at The Crescent in Ramsey on September 30 at 7.05am.

He was arrested on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children and gave no reply after caution.

Multiple devices were seized at Ashenden’s house and were later reviewed by the police’s Digital Evidence Unit.

It was estimated that 79,294 indecent images of children were found.

The images are categorised using the Copine scale, which is used to measure the severity of an image from one to five, with five being the most severe category.

Mr Kane said that 1,500 still images and 7,000 moving images had been assessed at level four.

Forty-seven still images and 19 moving images were categorised as level five.

The indecent images had been downloaded between August 2005 and September 2021.

Defence advocate Jane Gray said that the defence had not yet had the opportunity to establish how the overall number of images had been arrived at and that it appeared to be an estimation.

Ms Gray asked for a probation report to be prepared before sentencing.

Mr Kane replied that not every single image was checked by police and that a sample of 1,000 was assessed, but the prosecution case is that the total number of indecent images is 79,294.

The prosecutor said that the case was far too serious to be sentenced in summary court, pointing out that it involved distribution of images as well as possession of them.

Magistrates declined summary court jurisdiction and the case will be committed to the Court of General Gaol Delivery on May 20.

Bail was granted in the sum of £500 with conditions to reside at his home address, to co-operate with probation for the preparation of the report, and not to leave the island without court consent.

However, permission was given to leave the island between April 18 and 30 for a pre-booked trip to Jamaica.

Ashenden was ordered to sign on at a police station within 24 hours of returning from his trip.