A former police inspector was facing prison today after admitting downloading pornographic images of children.

Christopher Wratten, 49, of Bancroft Road, Bexhill, was being sentenced at Lewes Crown Court this afternoon after more than 90 images of children were found on his home computer.

Wratten, stationed at Hastings and with almost 30 years on the force, told police he had downloaded the "sickening" images to pass on to an internet watchdog group but had not told his commanding officers because he feared he would end up under suspicion.

Last month, he admitted seven charges of making indecent pseudo photographs of children, between September 1999 and November 2001.

Judge Richard Brown heard police had raided his home in July last year, as part of Operation Ore, a global crackdown on child pornography using credit card details from pay-per-view sites.

He also admitted downloading up to 800 images on to a disk which he later destroyed.

Stephanie Farrimond, prosecuting, said Wratten had told police: "I do surf the net for porn and I will explain the reason for that later. I came across a child porn site and I was quite disgusted by what I saw.

"I continued to access such sites to then report them to the internet watch people.

"Presumably there will be a record of that on my computer.

"I gave up because it was so unpleasant."

The court heard there had been no trace of Wratten having made any calls or having had any contact with an internet watch group.

Judge Brown reserved the matter for sentencing today, saying all options, including a prison sentence, were open to him.