Locations
North Hinksey, Oxford, OX2
Description
A teacher was filmed performing a sex act whilst on a call to who he thought was a 12-year-old girl - before asking her how she felt about starting year eight.
Paul Corrie, 60, quit his job as headteacher of John Mason School, Oxford, in 2007 to return to the classroom.
He met the 'girl' on website Chat Avenue Teen Chat at the end of the summer holidays last year - not realising it was an undercover police officer.
When he was arrested little more than a week later, he confessed to receiving web links to indecent images of children online.
Corrie later admitted to the probation officer that he had 'felt undervalued, unappreciated and unfulfilled' at his job.
On Monday the Judge imposed a 10-year sexual harm prevention order on Corrie and sentenced him to a year in prison - meaning he will be a registered sex offender for a decade.
Judge Maria Lamb acknowledged that the jail term would impact his wife and parents, who relied on him for support, but told the defendant: 'I cannot ignore the fact of the seriousness of this type of offending and in my view the only appropriate punishment here can be achieved by a sentence of immediate custody.'
Corrie met his 'victim' on Chat Avenue on August 17 last year.
Under the username 'SportyUKGuy', the dad told the 'girl' he was 36-years-old.
Informed by the police officer operating the decoy account that she was only 12, he replied: 'Nice, what do you look like?'
Their conversation moved to SnapChat, where 'SportyUKGuy's username was later matched to Corrie's mobile phone number.
Over the next week, he sent a number of images of himself in boxer shorts, of his naked genitalia and video-called the 'girl' while performing a sex act on himself.
Amidst other 'sexualised messages', the ex-headteacher asked the 'girl' - 'what school year she's going into and how she feels about going into year eight'.
He was arrested on September 1, immediately taking responsibility for his actions and telling the officers: 'It's true.'
Checks of his phone and computer showed he had six indecent images in the worst category, including one showing the rape of a girl estimated to be aged between two and four.
He had five indecent images and videos in category C.
These types of inappropriate images come under three categories: category A involves penetrative sexual activity, sexual activity with an animal or sadism.
Category B features images involving non-penetrative sexual activity, and category C is indecent images not falling in categories A or B.
Corrie was also found to have searched for key phrases favoured by paedophiles and there was evidence of hyperlinks being saved for favourite websites from 2017.
Corrie pleaded guilty at the magistrates' court to attempted sexual communication with a child, attempting to get a child to look at an image of sexual activity and possession of indecent images of children.
Mitigating, Kellie Enever said her client had no previous convictions, supported his wife and elderly parents, and had lived a 'good life' until that point.
She said since his arrest, he had undergone counselling with specialist charity the Lucy Faithfull Foundation.
A probation report assessed him as a medium risk of causing serious harm to children.
The offending is understood to have been completely unconnected to his work as a teacher.
A spokeswoman for UTC Oxfordshire, where Corrie was working as a maths teacher until his dismissal last September, said: 'Once we became aware of this matter, our safeguarding procedures were followed and we are satisfied that none of the children at the school were at any risk.'