A REGISTERED sex offender who had cartoon-pornography depicting child abuse on his hard drive has appeared in court.

Hilary Edward Walton, 79, of Grange Road, Shanklin, appeared before the Isle of Wight Crown Court on Thursday.

At a previous hearing at the Isle of Wight Magistrates' Court on February 9, he admitted possession of a prohibited image of a child.

Prosecutor, Kelly Brocklehurst, told the court Walton's case was an unusual one, in that the images found were cartoon-like ­— pseudo images.

He said Walton, subject to an indefinite sexual harm prevention order since 2016, was not permitted to use a device capable of accessing the internet unless inspected by police.

Mr Brocklehurst said 15 images were found on a hard disk drive belonging to Walton.

The court heard how police had attended Walton's address unannounced and conducted a manual examination of his hard drives and computer.

His devices were taken and thoroughly examined off-site.

Mr Brocklehurst said the images identified were not real-life images, but depicted serious abuse of children aged around ten years old. The majority fell into Category A ­— the worst kind.

In interview, Walton made frank admissions and said he had bought the device on ebay.

He said no one else had access to it, he did not recall downloading them, but said they may have been part of a bulk download.

Mr Brocklehurst said Walton admitted to police he had occasional sexual fantasies involving children, but knew the difference between fantasy and real life.

Walton, representing himself, told the court the images had been buried inside a game.

He said it was one of as many as 100 games, and the directory was created in 2015 ­— before he was sentenced for making indecent images of a child.

He said he had no idea the images were there ­— the computer was returned to him by police and he was under the impression there was nothing prohibited on it.

Walton's case was adjourned to May 24 for a further hearing.

He was granted unconditional bail.