Teesside teacher jailed for possessing indecent images of children
A highly-respected'' Teesside teacher has been jailed for 18 months for possessing** indecent images of children on a USB stick along with school work.**
Caroline Parry, 45, was head of English at a Middlesbrough secondary school when the authorities became aware she was swapping sick fantasies with a man in the US, Teesside Crown Court heard.
The married mother got involved in an online relationship with the man who disclosed early on that he was a paedophile.
He sent her images of serious sexual abuse of children which police found on laptops and on a USB stick when they raided her home.
At a previous hearing Parry, of Ryhill Walk, Ormesby, admitted making and possessing indecent images of children and one count of possessing extreme pornography.
Police found 20 indecent images of children, both moving and still, with 16 of them being of the most serious category.
Sentencing the former member of her school's senior leadership team, Judge Stephen Ashurst said: You are a 45-year-old woman whose fall from grace is** nothing less than spectacular.
You are regarded by the outside world as being a responsible mother.
You have been well-respected for many years as a senior teacher at a local school.
Your marriage is now in tatters, your home life disrupted, your career in ruins and, I am sure you will appreciate, all of this is self-inflicted.
For a number of years you maintained an online relationship with a man in the US.
He described to you at an early stage that he was a paedophile and he described in explicit details his sexual preferences, for sex with children, in particular very young girls and also with their mothers, and he sent very disturbing still and moving images to you.
Far from being repulsed by what you were either viewing or downloading, you encouraged him in his sick fantasies.
He referred to you as being a 'fellow paedo' and you went along with that.''
The judge said the local community could be reassured that the victims were not family members or pupils.
But he said that, regardless of where they lived in the world, the gravity of the offending was such that an immediate custodial sentence could not be avoided.
She was put on the sex offenders register for 10 years and made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for the same period.