A York businessman  who built up a national company had more than 10,000 indecent images of children on his work laptop, a jury heard.

Richard Paskauskas’ video wall hire company has bases in London, Birmingham and York, an annual turnover of £2.5 million and employs 12 staff as well as outside contractors, York Crown Court heard.

A year ago, police seized his work laptop from his home and found 10,345 indecent images of children -  including 2,292 of category A, the worst category - and some extreme pornography.

Paskauskas, 64, claimed he had no idea how the images got on the laptop and suggested a recently dismissed former employee may be responsible.

But after hearing from the company director and a police computer forensic expert, the jury convicted Paskauskas on all charges.

Paskauskas, of Pasture Lane, Heworth, had denied three charges of having indecent images of children and one of having extreme pornography.

Summing up, Recorder David Kelly said prosecution and defence agreed that the images found on the laptop were indecent. 

The jury heard that as well as the category A images there were 1,652 of the middle category, category B, and 6,401 of the lowest category, category C.

Police forensic work revealed that the images, some of which were not easily accessible, had been put on the computer between June 27, 2006, and February 26, 2016 and that some of them had been accessed close to times when Paskauskas’ user profile was active sending emails.

Recorder Kelly told the jury the company used laptops rather than desktop computers because they were more portable and the one containing the images had been bought for company use in 2006.

Giving evidence, Paskauskas had claimed that many people at the company had access to a user profile and associated password that enabled them to use the laptop.

Records of staff passports and driving licences were kept on the laptop.

The laptop had been at his home for six months without being used. He had brought it home after going down to London on company business.

The jury retired on the third day of the trial and spent three hours in retirement before returning their verdicts.

Following the guilty verdicts, Paskauskas was told he must register as a sex offender. The length of time he will be on the register will be decided when he is sentenced.

He was released on bail while probation officers prepare a pre-sentence report on him.

He will return to York Crown Court for sentence later this year.