A teacher was caught performing a sex act while on the phone with a girl he believed to be 12 years old, before asking her how she felt about beginning eighth grade.
In 2007, Paul Corrie, age 60, resigned as headmaster of John Mason School in Oxford to return to the classroom.
At the conclusion of the summer break last year, he met the ‘girl’ on the website Chat Avenue Teen Chat, unaware that she was an undercover police officer.
When he was caught a little more than a week later, he admitted getting links to internet child pornographic photos.
Later, Corrie disclosed to the probation officer that he had ‘felt underappreciated, unappreciated, and unfulfilled’ at work.
On Monday, the judge issued a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and a one-year jail term on Corrie, making him a sexual 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.’
On August 17 of last year, Corrie met his “victim” on Chat Avenue.
Under the handle ‘SportyUKGuy,’ the father disclosed to the ‘girl’ that he was 36 years old.
When the police officer managing the dummy account informed him that she was just 12 years old, he responded, “Nice, what do you look like?”
Their communication went to SnapChat, where the alias ‘SportyUKGuy’ was eventually associated with Corrie’s cell phone number.
Over the following week, he sent a series of photographs of himself in boxer shorts, bare genitalia, and a video of himself performing a sex act on himself.
In addition to other ‘sexualized messages,’ the ex-headteacher asked the ‘female’ what school year she was entering and how she felt about entering eighth grade.
On September 1, he was detained and promptly took responsibility for his acts, telling the authorities, ‘It’s true.’
Six obscene photographs of the worst category were discovered on his phone and computer, including one depicting the rape of a girl between the ages of two and four.
He has five category C indecent photographs and videos.
These inappropriate images are divided into three categories: Categorization A includes penetrative sexual acts, sexual acts with animals, and sadism.
The category B images depict non-penetrating sexual activity, and the category C images are those that do not fall into categories A or B.
Corrie was also found to have searched for phrases frequently used by paedophiles, and there was evidence that she had bookmarked links to her favourite websites as early as 2017.
At the magistrates’ court, Corrie pleaded guilty to attempted sexual communication with a child, attempting to get a child to view an image of sexual activity, and possession of indecent images of children.
Kellie Enever stated in mitigation that her client had no prior convictions, supported his wife and elderly parents, and had lived a “good life” up until that point.
She said that following his incarceration, he has received counselling from the Lucy Faithfull Foundation.
According to his probation report, he posed a moderate risk of causing serious harm to children.
The offending is believed to be completely unrelated to his teaching duties.
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.’