COMPUTER equipment seized from the home of former Humberside Police officer Alec Alexander contained nearly 66,000 indecent images of children.

The ex-Humberside Police chief superintendent is currently on trial at Hull Crown Court charged with raping and abusing a young girl.

Yesterday, the court heard evidence about child pornography found on computer equipment in Mr Alexander's study, which police recovered during a search in January.

The 61-year-old, of Woodhill Rise, Hessle, has pleaded guilty to 17 specimen charges of possessing and distributing indecent images of children.

The specimen charges are a sample of 65,858 images, including 538 movies.

Detective Constable David Littlewood, of Humberside Police's hi-tech crime unit, told the court 376 of the images were at the top end of the indecency scale.

The images are graded level one to level five, with five being the highest.

They were found on a computer tower, an external hard drive and a number of compact discs.

Mr Alexander denies one charge of raping a girl between January 1992 and December 1992 and four counts of indecent assault on a girl aged under 14 between January 1983 and December 1988.

One of the offences is alleged to have taken place when the child was just seven-years-old.

He also denies taking an indecent photograph between January 1983 and December 1990.

Mr Alexander retired from Humberside Police in 2000 after serving in the force for 30 years.

The trial continues.