BY LUCY CAULKETT
A primary school teacher who had more than 100 indecent pictures on his computer was trapped on a sex chat by a researcher posing as a 10-year-old girl, but has escaped jail today.
Thomas Nightingale, who worked at St Mary’s primary school in Bacup as a supply teacher, logged onto an over 18s sex chat room and began talking with a researcher, posing as a youngster. Fortunately enough, none of the images related to children at St Mary’s. Burnley Crown Court heard that the researcher was working for Dutch child protection charity Terre des Hommes, which was researching the extent of child grooming on the internet and ‘web cam child sex tourism’.
The court heard that Nightingale logged onto the chatroom in June 2013, and began a conversation with a researcher posing as a child called ‘Kyra10f’ – interpreted to Be A 10-years-old and female.
The perverted teacher, 27, asked if she ‘had any pics’ and when the researcher said she was with her younger sister and they could kiss he replied ‘that would be amazing to watch’. Naturally, the researcher was alarmed by the comments that she ‘felt compelled to call Interpol’.
Unsurprisingly, the same teacher was caught with indecent images on his computer few months later, in September 2013, after his dad took it to a shop for repair.A technician found the indecent images – including 38 of the most serious category A – and contacted police.
Nightingale claimed to believe he had deleted the pictures, saying he was shocked to find they were still on the computer. But he was telling porkies, he had uploaded them to a photo sharing website. Nightingale, of Whitworth, pleaded guilty to attempting to cause a child to engage in sexual activity, three counts of possessing indecent images and three counts of possessing indecent images for show.
He was given a two year jail term, suspended for two years with a supervision requirement and an internet sex offenders treatment program.
He was also given an indefinite sexual offences prevention order, made subject to police notification requirements for 10 years and ordered to pay £1,000 costs.
What a sick weirdo. It must have made the skin of parents crawl.
