A MAN could face jail after police raided his North-East home and found 906 indecent images of children on his computer.

Paul Michael Rhodes, 21, of Oakland Gardens, Darlington, was caught during Operation Ore - the transatlantic investigation into Internet child pornography.

His personal and bank details were found by US police on the database of a child pornography website and he was arrested by detectives in Darlington as part of Operation Sirdar, led by PC Paula Segger.

He appeared before South Durham Magistrates' Court yesterday and pleaded guilty to possessing 890 indecent images of children under the age of 18 and 16 counts of making indecent images of children under the age of 16, stored under different file names.

Magistrates in Darlington heard that PC Segger, together with Sergeant Simon Walker and Detective Constable James Honeyman, raided Rhodes' home and car on June 15.

The court heard that of all the images seized, 15 were in category five - being the most graphic and disturbing - and the majority were in category one and two.

Rachel Masters, prosecuting, said that Rhodes claimed in interview he was gathering information so that he could bring it to the attention of the police, but never found the courage to do so.

Chris Bunting, in mitigation, said his client feels a great deal of shame.

"This investigation has caused him a huge amount of personal and emotional turmoil," he said.

The court was told that Rhodes started accessing the images during a drunken night with some friends.

He said: "The Internet created a situation where, sadly, it was all too easy to access information of this nature."

Magistrates declined jurisdiction of the case and proceedings were sent to the crown court for sentencing at a later date.

Rhodes was granted conditional bail and placed on the sex offenders' register.