Primary school teacher jailed for 'disgusting' chat room sex talk with young girls

An assistant headteacher who spent years luring girls he believed to be as young as 10 into internet chat room conversations about sex has been jailed.

Andrew Shelton admitted it gave him a ‘buzz’ and even made contact on at least one occasion while at work at Harborne Primary School, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.

“He deliberately targeted young girls for his own gratification inciting them to sexual activity,” said Mr Hugh O’Brien Quinn, prosecuting.

Those involved told him they were aged between 10 and 15 but none was a pupil at the school where he taught.

The 51-year-old made contact through several chat rooms and 93 indecent pictures of young girls found on his laptop are believed to have been sent as a result of internet conversations, it was said.

The computer showed he had been behaving in such a way since at least 2014.

On September 28 2015, he asked a girl who gave her age as 13 if she wanted a weekend in Birmingham.

Mr O’Brien Quinn revealed: “He spoke to her about sex with older men.”

Shelton called a girl he believed was 12 that she was ‘hot and sexy as hell’ and he wanted to ‘meet, hold, stroke and teach her to enjoy her body’, said the prosecutor.

The teacher’s guilty secret was uncovered after he contacted a girl who called herself Chelsea, who said she was 13 on March 17 last year.

He told her she was a ‘real stunner’ after being sent a picture of a girl’s face but she was a police decoy and officers raided his home in Woodman Close, Halesowen, on July 17 last year to arrest him and seize the laptop with tell-tale details of his explicit chats.

With the exception of the undercover police officer, none of the other girls were traced but there was no suggestion that sexual contact ever took place.

Mr O’Brien Quinn concluded: “He knew it was wrong and illegal and saw himself as a paedophile.”

Miss Sophie Murray said the shamed teacher, who suffers from Spina Bifida, had voluntarily sought help to break his ‘addiction’ to young girls.

She added: “He has lost everything; his job, his wife, his relationship with his children. He is at rock bottom.”

Shelton, who was of previous good character, pleaded guilty to seven charges of attempting to incite young girls to engage in sexual activity and one of making indecent images.

He was jailed for two years and eight months by Judge Jinder Singh Boora, who told him: “These were systematic offences committed over a period of years.

"Some of the language used was disgusting and filthy when you thought you were conversing with children. You are a man who should have known better.”