A 68-year-old Onchan man has admitted possessing thousands of indecent images of children.

Police found the images after seizing electronic devices at Michael Dobson’s home at Ballachrink Drive.

The total number of images said to be found is 155,615 though Dobson may yet dispute this figure.

He pleaded guilty to 19 counts of possessing, making, or publishing indecent images of children and was committed to the Court of General Gaol Delivery to appear there on December 17.

We previously reported how in January this year Manx police were contacted by authorities in the UK who had been contacted by US authorities regarding a user account on the Kik application, which had been used to upload indecent images and videos.

Kik is a free messaging application similar to WhatsApp.

The Kik account was traced to Dobson and police subsequently executed a search warrant at his home on January 28.

The address was searched and several electronic devices were seized which were later found to contain thousands of indecent images of children.

The images and videos found on the devices had to be categorised by police using the Copine scale, which classifies the severity of the image from one to five, with five being the most severe.

It was said that the vast majority of the images were classified as level one, but 10,000 images were assessed at level four and 300 at level five.

The images had been downloaded over a five-year period, from 2016 to 2021.

interview

Dobson was interviewed by police and admitted downloading images, saying there would be images found of very young children, but claimed that he did not enjoy those.

He said that he had initially got ’curious’ around 2003 or 2004.

He said that some images had been moved to USB sticks but he denied ever contacting anyone online.

The court heard that he has no previous convictions.

Defence advocate Stephen Wood said that further information was required regarding how the number of images was arrived at.

Mr Wood said that a Newton Hearing may yet be required if the total figure was not agreed, but his client accepted being in possession of ’a very significant quantity’.

The advocate agreed that the case was not suitable for summary court sentencing.

High Bailiff Jayne Hughes declined jurisdiction and committed Dobson to the higher court.

He will make his first appearance there via video link from the prison on December 17.

No bail application was made and Dobson is remanded in custody.