Sex grooming teacher is sentenced

155 indecent images of children were found on Findley's computer

A former history teacher who tried to groom what he thought was a 12-year-old girl on the internet has been given a 12-month suspended sentence.

Richard Findley, 43, from Crowthorne, Berkshire, posed as a teenager to lure the girl into lurid exchanges.

London's Southwark Crown Court heard the "girl" was really an undercover detective from Scotland Yard's Paedophile and High Tech Crime Unit.

Father-of-three Findley was a former teacher at a girls' school in Ascot.

In a tactic that has resulted in 23 arrests and 16 convictions to date, the officer adopted an online child profile which had previously been used by a convicted paedophile.

Registered sex offender

Findley, who began his campaign of seduction weeks before starting at George's School in Ascot, Berkshire - the all-girl independent boarding school attended by Princess Beatrice - was arrested in January.

However, the court heard that his fantasy never became reality and he did not abuse his position at the school.

Anita Arora, prosecuting, said 155 indecent images of children were later found on his computer along with search engine phrases such as "little girls pics" and "preteen pics".

Findley admitted to one count of attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity, trying to cause a child to look at images of people engaged in sexual activity, and three counts of making and distributing indecent images of underage youngsters.

Findley was also placed on the sex offenders' register.