THURSDAY UPDATE: The jury in this trial has started its deliberations but a verdict will not be given today.

The jury at York Crown Court retired at 2.30pm on Thursday and will continue its discussions at 9.30am on Friday. 

Two sisters have accused a transport employee of sexually abusing them for years, starting when the younger was five.

The couple, now adults, went to police after learning that police had found illegal images of children on Stephen Paul Fligg's laptop.

He had known them through their mother, whom he met in a bar where she was working, York Crown Court heard.

Fligg, 58, of Ridgeway, Acomb, denies ten charges of indecent assault and two of indecency with a child.

Giving evidence, he denied that he had developed a friendship with the mother because she had young daughters, and denied that he was a paedophile.

He claims the sisters have made up the allegations because they wanted him to be jailed.

Opening the prosecution, David Gordon alleged the sisters kept silence about what happened to them in the 1990s until the older read an article about Fligg being convicted at York Crown Court of possessing illegal images of children.

They alleged he had abused them when they were at primary school and at the very start of secondary school.

The jury heard the images on his laptop were mostly of girls aged ten to 12 and ranged from mild to very serious sexuality.

They also heard Fligg has previous convictions for indecent exposure in 1973 and 1980 and for indecent assault in 1975 as well as three convictions for possessing indecent photos of children in 2014.

Giving evidence, Fligg denied that he had a sexual interest in children. He claimed he had accidentally came across the indecent images when on the internet and denied that he had used sexually explicit search terms to find them. He alleged the indecent exposures had been accidental or a joke when he was a young man and that the indecent assault had been groping his then girlfriend when her father had objected and called police.

He alleged he did sometimes walk naked about his house, but denied that he got a kick out of being seen naked.