A FORMER Oxford Brookes University employee was caught with dozens of depraved images of child abuse at his Headington home, a court heard.

Prosecutors at Oxford Crown Court claim that when police raided Michael Smith's All Saints Road house on the morning of August 30, 2016, a haul of indecent images was found on two separate computers.

The 54-year old, now of Winforton, Hereford, denies two counts of making indecent images on or before August 29, 2016.

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Detailing the case against him before a jury panel of nine women and three men at the crown court yesterday, prosecutor Jonathan Sank said that on one of the computers seized by police 60 banned images were found.

On the other machine, he said, 23 photographs of children were discovered.

After his arrest, the court heard, he declined to answer questions under interview at Abingdon Police Station.

Oxford Mail:

Abingdon Police Station

Once an analysis of the machines had been carried out, jurors were told, he was interviewed a second time by police.

During this interview, Mr Sank said, Smith accepted accessing pornography but said that any child images found on his computers were there by mistake.

Jurors were told that in his prepared statement to police Smith said: “I accept that I have come into contact with child pornography through my internet use.

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“However this was entirely accidental and caused me to delete the material as soon as I became aware of its existence.”

He went on to tell police, the court heard, that he had never knowingly downloaded an indecent image of a child but accepted using search terms for legal pornography including ‘Lolita’.

Speaking to police of the use of that term, the court heard, he said: “I don’t accept that this automatically equates to searching for child pornography.”

Smith denies both counts and the trial continues.