A 42-YEAR-OLD Ammanford man with mental health issues is to pay a harsh price for three-and-a-half minutes of madness when he viewed five indecent images of children from the internet.

Julian Ashley Dickinson, of 28b Harold Street, pleaded guilty to five charges of making indecent images of children on his computer on July 8.

Llanelli magistrates were told how indecent images of children were assessed in one of five categories of seriousness with five being the most serious and one the least serious.

Of the images downloaded by Dickinson, three were classed as category one and two were “at the lower end of category two”.

The images were of five children completely unknown to Dickinson and had been found on an internet website. A charge of making an image relates to viewing a photograph on-screen.

Vaughan Pritchard Jones, prosecuting, told the court how officers attended Dickinson’s home following a comment he had made to a care-worker.

“He had been with a member of the mental health team when he made a comment which made the team member think he might have been looking at inappropriate images.

“She contacted the police and Dickinson’s computer was seized.”

David Elvy, defending, told the court that Dickinson “had been receiving treatment for a number of mental health issues for a significant period of time”.

Mr Elvy told the court how five single images had been viewed on the internet in one session over a short period of time.

“This relates to three-and-a-half minutes of activity on one occasion,” he told the court.

Mr Elvy urged magistrates to gather all the medical details possible before sentencing Dickinson.

“Information from the mental health team will be essential in dealing with him,” he said.

Magistrates agreed to adjourn sentencing pending the completion of in-depth probation reports.

Dickinson is due to be sentenced on January 31.