The accounting scandal at global camera manufacturer Olympus - exposed by its former British chief executive Michael Woodford - has finally been admitted to by the company's president, Tsuyoshi Kikukawa.

In a widely covered court trial, Kikukawa said: 'There is no mistake. The entire responsibility lies with me.'

The scandal came to light after Woodford raised questions before the board regarding financial advice and acquisitions he was concerned about.

Prosecutors in Tokyo took up the case shortly after, and charged the company and six executives - including Kikukawa, former executive vice-president Hisashi Mori and former auditor Hideo Yamada - with filing annual securities reports with false statements.

Kikukawa, Mori and Yamada were arrested in February as investigations kicked off into what has emerged as one of Japan's biggest corporate scandals.

Prosecutors revealed in court that £1.1bn in losses from investments made during the 1990s had been hidden by disguising them through inflated and dubious transactions recorded in the accounts.

The executives knew of elaborate schemes which were used over several years, in addition to overseas bank accounts, paper companies and transactions controlled and kept off balance sheets, so that the company's losses would never come to the light of market regulators or shareholders.

The former executives face up to 10 years in prison, along with fines of up to $128,000 (£79,000) or both. The company may also be fined up to $1.5bn.

In January, KPMG and Ernst & Young were both cleared of responsibility for the fraud as both had respectively audited the company in the run-up to the fraud.

Olympus, which avoided a delisting from the Tokyo Stock Exchange because it restated earnings after uncovering the fraud over the last few years, is also understood to be suing Kikukawa, the Wall Street Journal reports.