A COMPANY director was caught with indecent images of children on seven external hard drives.

Christopher Dovey admitted having a total of 1,514 images including 25 of the most serious category A images.

One of the hard drives also contained a category A video.

Colchester Magistrates Court heard officers also found 108 category B images and six category B movies along side 1,381 less serious category C images and one category C movie.

The offences were carried out between April 2006 and March 2011.

Dovey, who is a director at Capel Plant Holdings, based in Stephenson Road, Colchester, appeared in the dock at the Colchester court yesterday.

The 48-year-old spoke only to confirm his name and address.

He admitted three charges of making indecent photographs of children.

Roger Pearson, prosecuting, told the court: “A number of images were seized by police and it took an amount of time for police to carry out investigations because of the sheer volume to go through.”

Mr Pearson told magistrates their sentencing powers are not sufficient to punish Dovey and asked for the case to be sent to Chelmsford Crown Court for sentencing.

James O’Toole, mitigating for Dovey, agreed the crown court was the appropriate court to pass sentence.

Magistrates released Dovey, of Grange Road, Lawford, on bail.

He was ordered not to have unsupervised access to children below the age of 16.

Mr O’Toole did not contest the condition.

Capel Plant Holdings specialises in cabin hire and portable toilets for building sites and events.

It also offers heavy haulage services and plant and tool hire services.

The company has clients across East Anglia.