A high-ranking police officer who downloaded hundreds of images of child abuse on his home computer was last night facing prison.

Christopher Wratten, 49, claimed he was engaged in an out-of-hours investigation when he trawled internet sites for child porn.

But he had not alerted his superiors or official web watchdogs to his project.

His home was raided in July last year as part of Operation Ore, a global crackdown on internet paedophiles using bank details from pay-per-view sites.

Wratten, who reached the rank of inspector during his 29-year career, yesterday admitted seven counts of making a total of 95 indecent images of children between September 1999 and November 2001.

Stephanie Farrimond, prosecuting at Lewes Crown Court, said Wratten, of Bancroft Road, Bexhill, admitted he had surfed the net for adult porn.

He told police: "I came across a child porn site and was disgusted by what I saw. I continued to access such sites to alert the internet watch people. I gave up because it was so unpleasant."

The Internet Watch Foundation had no record of a call from Wratten, Miss Farrimond said.

She added: "Mr Wratten said he intended to tell his chief superintendent but said 'he may suspect my motives' and he destroyed the disks."

Forensic experts examined Wratten's computer and 63 floppy disks found at his home.

A total of 95 child abuse images were found on five of the disks.

All the images had been deleted but were recovered by computer specialists.

When Wratten was arrested he told interviewing officers: "The images I downloaded were part of an evidence-gathering exercise. I could not look at the images. They were just sickening.

"Twenty years ago the possession of child porn was not illegal. It was not until I read the legislation that I found it was illegal. I thought oh s***, I have committed a crime."

That was when he attempted to destroy the images.

Ms Farrimond said the defendant had admitted downloading up to 800 images on to a CD-Rom which he later destroyed.

He said he failed to tell his bosses for fear of becoming a "defendant in an interview room".

Wratten resigned from his post at Hastings last October while on remand.

Judge Brown ordered psychiatric reports.

He said: " All sentencing options, including custody, will be open to me."

The case was adjourned until November 27.