A TEENAGER from York has admitted creating and possessing indecent images of children after they were discovered by fellow pupils.

The 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared before York Youth Court charged with four counts of creating the images and 12 counts of owning the pictures.

Martin Butterwoth, prosecuting, told how a teacher at the defendant’s school had noticed a group of pupils huddled around a computer monitor looking at indecent pictures contained on a memory stick.

He said: “When seized by police it was found to contain indecent images of boys and it had the defendant’s name on it.

“He was arrested and confirmed the memory stick was his but had lost it at school and it was found by other pupils. He denied downloading the images.”

The court heard, however, that police examinations of his computer equipment eventually linked the youth to the images. Some of the pictures, which were said to contain images of boys as young as seven or eight, fell into the second most serious category for indecent images of children.

The court heard that the defendant was appearing before magistrates for the first time.

He is due to appear before the bench again for sentencing on August 30.

The chairman of the bench ordered pre-sentencing reports including a forensic psychiatric report, and told the defendant he could not be left unsupervised in the company of anyone under the age of 16 or be permitted to have unsupervised access to the internet.