A former supervisor at a Bradford children's home is facing jail after admitting a string of sex offences over 25 years.

Gordon Oliver, who worked with vulnerable children in the city for 15 years, admitted eight indecent assault charges involving two boys and a girl when he appeared in court last September.

Yesterday, the 58-year-old had been due to stand trial on further allegations at Bradford Crown Court.

But after he pleaded guilty to another indecent assault allegation against a second female and a charge of sexually touching a third boy, prosecutor Michelle Colborne confirmed that his pleas were now acceptable to the Crown and he was remanded in custody to await sentence.

None of his five victims can be identified for legal reasons.

Other indecent assaults alleged to have been committed against two more boys and an allegation of raping one of the females will be left on the file after Oliver is sentenced at Leeds Crown Court next month.

The full details of Oliver's offending has not been revealed in court, but the charges are understood to arise out of his work at the Springfield Children's Home near Bradford Royal Infirmary and later as a social worker.

The abuse covers a period from 1979 when Oliver was based at the children's home, up until 2004 when he was working in the Brighton area.

A spokesman for Bradford Council confirmed Oliver worked for the authority's children's services team for 15 years between 1977 and 1992.

He was employed in both residential care and later in field work postings - visiting vulnerable children in their own homes.

The authority has now ordered an independent inquiry to find out whether it could have done anything differently to prevent the crimes.

Richard Bates, head of children's services for Bradford social services team, said: "We have worked closely with West Yorkshire Police to help bring this matter to a successful conclusion.

"Now that the criminal matters are concluded an enquiry will be carried out by an external child protection expert to see whether procedures at that time were an issue in this case. We are satisfied that current practices guarantee the safe care of children but we will review them again."

When he was arrested police discovered almost 300 indecent images of youngsters on his computer at his home in Washington Street, Brighton.

Such computer images are graded in seriousness from level one up to level five and Judge Wolstenholme was told that more than a quarter were at level four.

Oliver admitted 20 charges of possessing indecent pseudo photographs of children during his court appearance five months ago.

Following the hearing in September, Oliver was required to register as a sex offender with the police and since then he has been on bail awaiting his trial on the outstanding allegations.

But yesterday his barrister Denis Bradley said he had come to court knowing he would be kept in custody and he realised that any pre-sentence report about him would be relevant only to the length of his prison sentence.

He's only too well aware of the form the sentence will take," conceded Mr Bradley.

Judge Wolstenholme told Oliver: "I am not going to sentence you today because I agree with your counsel that it is going to be important to have an assessment by the probation service.

"As you recognise there has to be a custodial sentence and the question for the court on the 17th of February is for how long is it necessary to send you to prison?

"In the meantime you will be in custody and you will get credit for the time served between now and your eventual sentence."