A FORMER Roman Catholic priest from Suffolk has admitted downloading images of adults having sex with young boys.Father Neil Crayden, 47, who was a priest in Brandon and Haverhill, appeared before Exeter magistrates after detectives raided his home on December 30 and found six child sex pictures.

A FORMER Roman Catholic priest from Suffolk has admitted downloading images of adults having sex with young boys.

Father Neil Crayden, 47, who was a priest in Brandon and Haverhill, appeared before Exeter magistrates after detectives raided his home on December 30 and found six child sex pictures.

The priest was caught by Operation Ore, which is targeting paedophiles who have used credit cards to access child abuse images from the Texas-based Landslide Productions website.

He did not own a computer, but police found the six pictures on a floppy disk. Magistrates were told two of the images were rated at level four of a five-point scale, meaning they showed children having sex with adults.

Crayden, who is now living at Marine Parade, Twywn, Mid Wales, admitted receiving child pornography from Landslide Productions in 1999 and six charges of possessing indecent images of children. Magistrates adjourned the case for pre-sentence reports.

Originally from Kent, Crayden grew up in Norwich and was priest for the Holy Apostles parish in Earlham.

He left in about 1995 and then served as a priest in Brandon and Haverhill, where he was a regular visitor at the local Roman Catholic primary school.

Crayden trained as a teacher and before his move to the West Country he was a member of the East Anglian Roman Catholic forum on religious education and served on a Norfolk County Council committee advising on the subject.