An Eton College student found with more than 2,000 indecent images of children on his computer at the school had encouraged youngsters to strip for him on webcam, a court heard.
Andrew Picard was aged 17 years at the time he is accused of making indecent photographs of children at the prestigious private school near Windsor, Berkshire.
Picard, now aged 18 years, did not enter a plea to 12 counts of child abuse.
The alleged offences date from January to February this year, when Picard was said to have incited youngsters to undress on webcam and shared indecent images of children via chat messages on online video calling app Skype.
Claire Barclay, prosecuting, said the charges were too serious to be dealt with by magistrates.
“You can see from the charges that they are extremely serious,” she told the bench at Oxford Magistrates’ Court. “They include the fact that Mr Picard had in his possession 1,000 images of child abuse – a great proportion of these being category A.
