AN AUTISTIC man's attempts to lessen his social isolation ended with him in the dock at York Crown Court.

Neal Coxon, proseucting, said Dylan John Jake Fulton, 28, had more than 5,500 indecent videos and photographs of children on his home computer as well as extreme pornography.

He had viewed at least one just hours before police executed a search warrant at his then home in Principal Rise, Dringhouses on January 2019.

His solicitor advocate Graham Parkin said he had not had a sexual motivation.

"He is trying to get himself to the position where he feels not isolated, which is one of the problems for autistic people," he said.

Fulton pleaded guilty to three charges of downloading indecent images of children, one of having extreme pornography and one of having a prohibited image of a child.

He was given a three-year community order with 40 days' rehabilitative activities and put on the sex offenders' register for five years. He was also made subject to a sexual harm prevention order for five years.

"You are a man with considerable difficulties with autistic spectrum disorder," the Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, told him. "You live a highly isolated existence. The reasons behind (this offending) are complex and not necessarily at times sexual."

Mr Coxon said Fulton had 326 videos of children being sexually abused, including 163 of the most serious kind, and 5,264 sexual pictures of children, including 1, 702 of the most serious category.