SICKENING pictures of local children were among a haul of child porn recovered from a paedophile’s home.

John Bell had 120,000 images of children on his computers, including pictures of naked youngsters and some of children suffering sexual abuse.

At Greenock Sheriff Court, the 52-year-old admitted three charges relating to child porn.

The hoard involved 45 indecent images involving kids from this area.

They were discovered on three PCs recovered from Bell’s former home in Pennyfern Road.

The pictures were taken at locations including Loch Thom, Beith Dam and near to Whinhill Golf Course.

Police computer experts also found evidence of internet conversations between Bell and a Belgian paedophile, discussing their ‘appreciation’ of young boys.

Police experts successfully recovered 6,325 images from the seized equipment, and managed to find traces of another 113,000 images that he had managed to wipe using specialist software.

Depute fiscal Clifford Most told the court Bell had taken groups of local children on trips to a variety of locations, where he snapped pictures of boys swimming which he stored on his laptop.

After a probe by police following a complaint by a concerned parent, Bell offered officers his computer, believing he had used specialist software to erase the tens of thousands of images that had been stored.

Mr Most told the court: “Chat files found showed he had been a collector of indecent images of children and that he had destroyed 113,000 of these from his hard drive.

“During conversations with a man in Belgium known as Gino, the accused also spoke of time he enjoyed in young boys’ company and ‘wonderful’ pictures of them taking part in naked swimming.” The court also heard folders were found with downloads from Russian naturist websites, with others filed with pictures titled ‘Filipino and African boys’.

The images - which predominantly featured boys aged between five and 13 - were so harrowing, Sheriff John Herald was forced to close a courtroom to view them in private.

During his appearance in the dock on Thursday, Bell pleaded guilty, through solicitor Gerry Keenan, to possession of indecent photographs or pseudo-photos of children between 1 January 2005 and 20 November last year at an address in Pennyfern Road.

He also admitted making, taking or permitting to be taken, indecent images of children at his home, Loch Thom, in Old Largs Road at Whinhill Golf Course, Beith Dam, Loch Lomond, Blackpool and the Time Capsule in Coatbridge between 1 January and 12 September 2008.

His guilty plea was also accepted by the Crown to committing the crimes above and knowing they would be investigated by the authorities, using evidence eliminator, window washer and other computer software to delete materials and attempting to defeat the ends of justice.

Not guilty pleas to three other charges of sharing, distributing, making and possessing indecent photos of children were accepted by the Crown.

Sheriff Herald deferred sentence on Bell for the preparation of background and Pathways reports until next month.

Bell was remanded in custody to appear in court again then.

JOHN Bell was caught when the father of one of his victims raised the alarm.

The concerned dad contacted police after the boy told him the paedophile had put him on the phone to speak to a man in Belgium called Gino.

The court heard Bell later told the foreign pervert during an internet chat how he had worked through the night to delete his sickening collection of child porn as he was expecting a police visit.

Officers called at Bell’s home in Pennyfern Road to speak to him about his relationship with the boy, and warned him not to have any further contact with the child.

The warning sparked an angry response from the 52-year-old, who then lodged a complaint with Strathclyde Police and a visit was arranged from a senior CID officer.

During this, Bell insisted his interest in the children was ‘wholesome’ and offered his laptop and passwords to police for examination, believing specialist software programmes, including evidence eliminator and window washer, had destroyed the haul of images.

But experts managed to uncover a series of disturbing pictures, including dozens involving local children, on the machine - prompting the specialist computer crime unit to swoop on his home.

They seized a second Toshiba laptop, a Hewlett Packard PC and a Phillips external hard drive from Bell’s bedroom.

This time he refused to part with passwords, but experts managed to recover more than 5,800 images from the three computers.

They also found specialist software had been used to try to wipe the Toshiba machine 90 minutes before police visited Bell.

A further 316 images were found on the HP computer, and experts recovered a chat log between Bell and the Belgian paedophile. Depute fiscal Clifford Most said: “There were 6,325 images of children in named albums.”