A MINEHEAD man has appeared in court for sentencing on two charges of making indecent images of children and one of possessing extreme pornographic material involving an animal.

Michael Pilley, aged 50, of Bernard Crescent, appeared in Taunton Deane Magistrates Court on Thursday (August 27) after having entered guilty pleas during an earlier hearing on June 12 this year.

Prosecuting solicitor Susan Cameron told the magistrates all of the offences were historic, dating to some time between April 27, 2018, and August 1, 2018.

Ms Cameron said Pilley had been in possession of a grossly offensive extreme pornographic image portraying in an explicit and a realistic way a person performing a sexual act with an animal.

Pilley, who was represented by solicitor Philip Boyce, had also made an indecent photograph of a child which fell into category A, the most extreme, and 10 category C images, all in Minehead.

Chairman of the bench Valerie Castell ordered Pilley to carry out 150 hours of unpaid community work and to pay £85 toward prosecution costs and £114 to a victim surcharge fund.

Mrs Castell said Pilley would have to register as a sex offender with police for the next five years.

She also issued a sexual harm prevention order for five years which restricted Pilley’s access to the intenet.

The order meant he could not use any computer or device capable of accessing the internet or storing data before notifying the police of its acquisition and he would have to make it available on request for inspection and could not delete any history without permission.

Police were also given powers to install risk management monitoring software on any device if they decided it was necessary.

Pilley would also have to provide usernames and passwords to police for any social media platform or internet forum within three days of creating an account.