A father of two who appeared before Cork Circuit Criminal Court yesterday, charged with downloading over 2,000 images of child pornography from the Internet, had sentencing in his case adjourned to facilitate the preparation of further psychiatric reports.
Colin Ashman (31), Tooreenfineen, Rockchapel, Co Cork, previously pleaded guilty to a single charge of having in his possession a computer which contained naked images of girls.
Garda Bill Brosnan said 2,343 images of child pornography were contained in the defendant's hard drive.
Ashman's house was raided by gardaí on November 19th, 2001. The majority of images recovered were of girls in the 11 to 14 age group. The accused has lived in Co Cork for over three years but is originally from Bristol, where his former partner and two children still live.
Defence counsel Mr Donal O'Sullivan applied for an adjournment of sentencing to allow further reports to be prepared by Dr Gillian Moore Groarke.
Judge Patrick J. Moran agreed to the request, adding he wished to see some of the images which Ashman downloaded before deciding on a sentence.
Sentencing was adjourned in the case until May 7th. The defendant was remanded on continuing bail until his next court appearance.
Possession of pornographic images of children is an offence under Section 6.1 of the Child Pornography and Trafficking Act.