A YOUNG hospital nurse has been suspended after the FBI proved that he was downloading thousands of indecent pictures of children from the Internet.

North Durham Health Care NHS Trust said it would decide the fate of Lee Wright after a court had passed sentence on 12 charges of making indecent photographs of a child.

The 23-year-old, from Marmaduke Street, in Spennymoor, County Durham, pleaded guilty on Friday to downloading 8,567 images of children from a US website.

The case at Sedgefield Magistrates' Court was adjourned until September 9 for sentence.

Wright was caught after FBI investigators obtained details of his credit card, which was used twice to purchase porn from a site they were investigating.

He had worked at the University Hospital of North Durham, in Durham City, for two months.

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 claimed in court that he did not realise he had downloaded pictures of children involved in sex acts and had been looking for adult porn. He said he intended to get rid of the disturbing images.

But last night, Detective Constable Jason Corbett, from Spennymoor police, said police believed Wright knew what he was doing.

He said: "He has been portrayed as a bit of a daft lad who has made a mistake.

"He was charged with these offences because we believe he knowingly made these images."

When Wright appeared before magistrates last week, the Crown Prosecution Service said images downloaded had disgusting titles which he then changed so that nobody would recognise their content.

His arrest came as part of a global investigation involving the FBI and the National Crime Intelligence Service, which has lists of thousands of people who have been accessing the Internet to download child pornography.

The two-tier operation, called Operation Ore, 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 material hidden in his computer and said it is the second biggest haul they had found so far.

A number of people have been arrested nationwide, including one from Tyneside and another from Guisborough in east Cleveland.