A FORMER East Lancashire nurse has been accused by his professional watchdog of searching for indecent images of children online while he worked for a learning disability unit — despite being cleared by a crown court jury.

Peter Dennis Davies, 56, is set to appear before the Nursing and Midwifery Council later this month to answer three main charges while employed at the Maplewood Unit at Whalley-based Calderstones Partnerships NHS Foundation Trust.

But Lancashire Police have confirmed that Davies, then of Tavistock Street, Nelson, was cleared of four offences of making indecent images by a Preston Crown Court jury in May 2011.

Davies, then a learning disabilities nurse, is accused by the NMC of downloading one or more moving images onto the hard drive of his personal laptop.

File names are alleged to include ‘Paedophilia 9/10/11-year-old’, ‘PTHC web cam blond and BF, 14-year-old’, ‘Two 13-year-old little girls’ and ‘Duped college girl’.

He is said to have known that the files listed contained indecent images of children when they were either being downloaded or stored.

The third charge relates to his use of the actual search terms listed.

Davies’ hearing will take place for the NMC’s fitness to practice panel, sitting at the Old Bailey in London from April 23.

A Calderstones spokesman said: “This relates to circumstances outside of work which gave us cause for concern about his suitability to be employed by us. This individual no longer works for us.”