Child porn teacher avoids prison

A teacher from Greater Manchester who downloaded more than 150 child porn images has avoided being sent to jail.

Swimming coach Paul Hassall, 43, of Greenleach Lane, Worsley, admitted keeping of images on his home computer, Manchester Crown Court was told.

He was sentenced to a three-year community rehabilitation order and banned from contact with children.

Judge Brian Carter QC told Hassall that if he had pleaded not guilty he would have been sent to prison.

"To behave in the way that you did is totally unacceptable in our society," said the judge.

The orders that I will impose will protect the public and in particular will protect children Judge Brian Carter QC

"You did it for your own personal satisfaction and, I suppose, sexual gratification."

Hassall, a swimming teacher at a school in Bolton, was told to join a sex offender treatment programme.

The court heard he downloaded 151 images of children and kept them in numbered folders.

The maths teacher, who also led school sports lessons and coached the water polo team, was investigated by police after a pupil complained about him.

'Thinking deficiencies'

He was arrested by police in December 2004 and officers seized two computers and a back-up disk from his home.

More than 900 pornographic images were discovered, including 151 of children being sexually abused.

Almost 30 were described in court as showing adults having sex with young boys.

Stuart Denning, prosecuting, said Hassall had "deficiencies in his thinking".

The court heard Hassall, who was treasurer and archivist at his local church, had lost his job and his reputation as a result of his offences.

Sex offenders' register

Mark George, defending, said Hassall regretted his actions.

Hassall pleaded guilty to 16 sample charges of making, and one charge of possessing, indecent images of children in October last year.

A charge of abusing a position of trust through sexual activity with a child was ordered to lie on file.

He was ordered to sign the sex offenders' register for five years.

"In my judgment the orders that I will impose will protect the public and in particular will protect children," the judge said.

"This programme is no soft option."