A FORMER Lake District camp site manager is facing jail after admitting downloading and distributing indecent images of children.

Carlisle Crown Court heard illegal images downloaded by Timothy John Lovatt featured children aged as young as one month. Lovatt, 57, was also said to have distributed thousands of indecent images to others during many months in 2015 and 2016.

When he appeared before Judge Peter Hughes QC this afternoon, he pleaded guilty to six crimes.

Three of these related to downloading indecent images of children - hundreds of which are classed in category A, the most serious. He also admitted possessing extreme pornographic images, having a prohibited image of a child and distributing 5,521 indecent photographs of children.

Lovatt was said in court to be a man with no previous convictions who had previously attained the rank of petty officer in the Royal Navy. He had worked for a Kendal-based engineering company before taking over the management of a Windermere camp site with his now ex-wife.

Judge Hughes adjourned sentence until Monday of next week. Lovatt, now of West End Road, Morecambe, was remanded in custody until then.

He was told by the judge that his punishment "inevitably is an immediate custodial sentence".