Looking into it a bit more, it might be something to do with the new timcode feature in cs5.5 that is causing the issue with the softimage .pic sequences
Thanks for your responses…this is definately a bug with cs5.5 importing image sequences and the new timecode system.
The only way around this I can see without Adobe creating a bug fix is to revert to CS5 and hoperfully that will solve the problem.
Thanks again
Jamie