A north man downloaded dozens of obscene videos featuring children.
John McLelland used a computer at his parents’ home to access the images.
But Inverness Sheriff Court heard police received intelligence that indecent material had been downloaded at the address and raided the property.
Yesterday, 45 year old McLelland, whose address was given as 96 Kirkside, Alness, appeared before Sheriff Margaret Neilson and admitted that 53 obscene videos were accessed by him.
Fiscal depute Alison Wylie told the court that he still had a bedroom at his parents’ house.
She added that on January 28, 2013 police seized his computer and the video were found on the device.
She said 37 of the films were of the second highest level of obscenity, while four were at the highest level.
The fiscal depute said: “They were all downloaded on to the computer between November 12, 2012 and January 21, 2013, using file sharing software.
“He was taken to Alness police station where he was interviewed. He said during that period he was occasionally visiting his parents’ house and kept the computer tower there.
“He added that he was experiencing a number of personal issues at that time and was drinking and taking drugs on a regular basis and suffered depression.
“He said that he may well have downloaded these images, but had only a slight recollection of doing so, but could not be more specific.”
“At one point he said ‘I just thought, right, you know what, I’ll just fire that on and wait for the police to come to the door’.”
Sentence was deferred until November 16 for a background report and McLelland was placed on the sex offenders register.