THE former auditor general of Wales was allegedly found with 419 indecent photographs of children after police investigated his Government laptop computer, a court heard today.

Jeremy Colman, the £170,000-a-year public spending watchdog, is also accused of making 10 indecent images - three of them showing sex between children and adults.

Married Colman, aged 61, resigned from his post overseeing the spending of £20billion of taxpayers' money after an internal investigation at the Wales Audit Office.

Colman yesterday faced 10 charges of making an indecent photograph of a child, four charges of possessing indecent images and one of failing to give a computer password to police.

Colman made no plea to the charges at Cardiff magistrates court and the case was adjourned for commital next month.

Prosecutor Mike Evans, said: "There are 15 offences in total involving 429 indecent images of children seized from computers in his employ.

"The offences are serious and made more grievous because of his serious position as Auditor General of Wales."

Colman, formerly of Dinas Powys but now of Orton Longueville, near Peterborough, was given bail with four conditions, including not entering Welsh Office premises, not contacting Welsh Audit staff, and not travelling outside the UK.

If found guilty the offences carry a maximum of 10 years in prison.

The 419 indecent images allegedly found in his possession included 126 at level four of an indecency scale - where children are shown having sex with adults. The highest category is level five.

Three of the 10 images relating to making charges are also at level four of the scale.

The charge involving a computer memory stick was allegedly failure to disclose the key to protected information to police.

Cambridge maths graduate Mr Colman, who was previously a partner in PriceWaterhouseCoopers, was appointed Auditor General when the Wales Audit Office was created in 2005.

The ex-Treasury civil servant, who helped privatise British Airways, was due to stay in his post until 2012.

His job, officially given to him by the Queen, was to monitor public spending and ensure taxpayers got value for money.