The owner of a children's summer camp, who is accused of not acting when naked images of three and four year old girls were found on his business partner's phone, has chosen not to give evidence.

The prosecution alleges that Tal Landsman, 26, wilfully exposed children to harm by not immediately reporting his best friend Ben Lewis to the authorities.

But his barrister Philip Evans QC told the jury at St Albans Crown Court today there was only a short period of time between the discovery of the photos and when police arrived to arrest Ben Lewis at LL Camps at Bushey in Herts.

The police had been called by a concerned staff member, but Mr Evans said that at a meeting the previous night, at South Mimms Service Station, Tal Landsman, his brother Adam and fellow director Dan Risner had agreed to report the matters.

Under cross examination, staff members had agreed that before the police arrived, Ben Lewis had been moved from duties directly involving children at the camp.

The court heard Mr Landsman was of good character and had no previous convictions or cautions.

A friend and character witness Ilan Ben-Zion, who is a trainee clinical psychologist, described Mr Landsman as "extremely bright, vibrant, enthusiastic and determined".

Mr Ben-Zion said: "He loves spending time with children and has the utmost respect for them."

Earlier, the jury of seven men and five women heard from a member staff, Sandra Vicente, that the sight of the images on Ben Lewis's phone had "polluted" her brain.

Ms Vicente said Lewis had given her his phone and PIN so she could play music at a children's party on Saturday, August 1 last year.

When the party had finished she said a colleague, Mohammed Ramli, asked to look at photos on the phone that Ben had taken of him a few days previously. After looking at those pictures she said she clicked on the deleted images.

She said: "I was just nosey. I looked at the deleted items. First I saw children on a beach. They were not wearing anything. They were aged three to four.

"Then I saw pictures that had been taken in a changing room. I would say they were aged three to four. I felt my brain was polluted. I felt sick."

She said the images were also seen by Mohammed Ramli and another worker Shelby Silver.

That night she said she told Tal Landsman what she had seen, but the prosecution alleges he did nothing, and allowed his friend to continue at work.

Ms Vicente said the next day Ben Lewis spoke to her at work. "He said: 'There is something disgusting on my phone. I don't know how it got there,'" she said.

Mr Landsman, of Crambus Court, Admiral Drive, Stevenage, pleads not guilty to a single charge of cruelty to a person under 16 between July 31 and August 7, 2015.

Prosecutor Ann Evans told the jury: "You may think this is the height of irresponsibility and, as co-owner, his first duty in this situation should have been to the children, not the co-owner Ben Lewis. He said he would write a report about what happened and she trusted him to do so. He even suggested to Sandra that it might just be a phase Ben was going through."

Mrs Evans said staff had immediately told Tal Landsman what had been found on Ben Lewis's phone.

She said: "In an effort to protect his friend he did nothing about what he had heard, and allowed the parties and activities to keep running at the camp until eventually Ofsted moved in and closed the place down on August 6 last year.

"As far as Mr Landsman is concerned, friend or no friend, it was his obligation for the safety of the children in his care to report Mr Lewis, to remove him from the premises, or shut the operations. By not doing so he exposed these children to the unnecessary risk that they would suffer harm at the hands of his co-director."

The jury has been told Ben Lewis, also 26, of Lullington Garth, Borehamwood had earlier pleaded guilty to three counts of making (downloading) indecent photographs of a child and one of taking an indecent photograph of a child.

The case continues.