A NURSE has been suspended from his duties after he downloaded thousands of indecent pictures of children from the Internet.

North Durham Health Care NHS Trust is now waiting the outcome of court proceedings where Lee Wright faces 12 charges of making indecent photographs of a child.

Wright, 23, of Marmaduke Street, in Spennymoor, has already pleaded guilty to downloading a total of 8,567 images of children from a US website. The case was adjourned for sentence.

He was caught after the FBI in America got details of his credit card which was used twice to purchase porn from a site they were investigating.

Wright, who had only worked at the University Hospital of North Durham for two months, was immediately suspended from his job.

A spokesperson for the trust which runs the hospital said: "We can confirm that a 23-year-old nurse was suspended immediately after the Trust was informed that he was under investigation over allegations concerning child pornography on the Internet.

"He worked on a ward for adults and he did not come into contact with children. The trust believes it has acted swiftly in this matter and is waiting to see the outcome of judicial proceedings before taking further action.''

Wright claims he did not realise he had downloaded pictures of children involved in sex acts and had been looking for adult porn. But DC Jason Corbett, from Spennymoor Police, who has been involved with the investigation, said police believe Wright knew what he was doing.

He said: "He has been portrayed as a bit of a daft lad who has made a mistake. The investigation was completed and he was charged with these offences because we believe he knowingly made these images.''

Wright appeared at Sedgefield Borough Magistrates Court where the Crown Prosecution Service said images downloaded had disgusting titles which he then changed to something else that nobody would recognise their content.

In a nationwide investigation linked to the FBI's findings, the National Crime Intelligence Service has lists of thousands of people who have been accessing the Internet to download child pornography.

The two-tier operation has separated the main suppliers from those lesser offenders who are buying the images.

Wright was listed among the lesser but police were shocked by the sheer volume of what he had hidden in his computer