A Harriston man pleaded guilty Monday to accessing child pornography.

Justice John Payne adjourned sentencing of Dan Saigeon, 37, to Oct. 29 to allow preparation of a pre-sentence report on the married man, who has no previous criminal record.

He warned the tall individual, who appeared in court in long ponytail and goatee, that the law stipulates a mandatory minimum sentence of 14 days in jail for such an offence.

Prosecutor Judith MacDonald submitted as exhibits explicit, provocatively posed photographs focusing on the genitals of naked children as young as two and three years old, which Payne ruled would be sealed after sentencing.

“There’s obviously huge privacy interests,” Payne said, referring to the compromising digital photos of kids.

Defence attorney Mark Hebner, of Elora, in fact, suggested the images should be destroyed after the case concludes. He also said the images were at “the lower end” of child pornography because they did not depict sexual activity.

MacDonald told the court an Ontario Provincial Police child sex crimes unit was investigating child pornography in the province early this year when Saigeon’s online activity became of interest.

Police officers determined the man had accessed the internet images between Dec. 16, 2011 and this past Jan. 26 through a file sharing program, she noted.

OPP executing a search warrant at Saigeon’s residence Feb. 7 as part of an ongoing province-wide dragnet discovered the hard drive storage on his computer had been destroyed. But they also found a small number of images on other computer equipment in the residence, depictions MacDonald told the court constituted child pornography.

In general terms, the photos featured depictions of pre-pubescent boys and girls positioned compromisingly to expose their immature genitals.

File-sharing programs allow online networks of people with similar interests around the globe to view and share images (and other digital media).

On arrest, Saigeon admitted viewing such material through the internet for several years, MacDonald said.

“My client is agreeing he accessed it,” Hebner told Justice Payne.