A man took images of women from their Facebook profiles and uploaded them to a pornographic website, a court has heard.

Ryan Mochrie, 23, superimposed the face of one of his victims on to the body of another woman who was pictured having sex.

Using the online username FalkirkLad, Mochrie took images of three women, aged 16 to 20, from their Facebook profiles and uploaded them to the message board, where other users added sexually explicit comments.

Falkirk Sheriff Court was told a major police investigation was launched last year after 18 women from around the town contacted police to complain their images had been uploaded without their permission to the sexually explicit website.

The court heard Mochrie walked into Falkirk Police Station and identified himself as being behind the FalkirkLad username after local publicity.

Prosecutor Samantha Brown said three pictures on the website were identified as having been posted by someone with the username FalkirkLad.

She said: "One of the images from Facebook was altered, and it was the altered image that was posted on the website. It was sexual.

"The female's face had been superimposed on an alternative sexually-explicit picture. The other pictures were not sexually explicit but were posted on a website for people who enjoyed sexually explicit images. This obviously caused these females upset.

"It is understood that a number of other, tampered with, images of women from the Falkirk area were uploaded by another user, who has not been identified.

Mochrie, formerly of Denny, near Falkirk, now of Kilsyth, Stirlingshire, pleaded guilty to causing a breach of the peace by posting the images last year.

Sheriff Derek Livingston continued the case until Friday for more details.

He told defence agent Kevin Douglas that Mochrie would be placed on the sex offenders register as he considered there to be a "significant sexual element" to the crime.

He said: "I have heard a partial narration. I will continue the case so it can be clarified."