Patrick Rock arriving at Westminster Magistrates Court in 2014 | Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images Former aide to David Cameron guilty of child images offenses Patrick Rock admitted downloading images of scantily-clad under-age girls but denied they were indecent.

A long-time aide to British Prime Minister David Cameron was on Wednesday found guilty on five counts of downloading indecent photographs of children.

He was cleared on two counts of downloading pictures of scantily clad under-age girls.The jury failed to reach verdicts on a further 12 counts.

Patrick Rock, 65, has known Cameron for more than 20 years. He was deputy director of policy at Downing Street. One of his assignments included working on policy that would protect children from internet pornography.

Following his arrest in February 2014, he resigned from his job in Downing Street. Investigators seized his iPad and discovered the images while he was working in the U.S.

At his trial in a London court, Rock admitted downloading 20 pictures of nine girls from a free-to-view website in August 2013 but denied the images were indecent. His trial focused on whether the pictures, which included girls aged 10 to 16, posing in bikinis, hot pants and bras, broke the law.

The prosecution said although the girls in the images were not naked, they were in "sexual" poses. But the defense argued that they were no more explicit that the video for Britney Spears' song Baby One More Time, which featured her dressed as a schoolgirl and was made when she was 16.

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