A history teacher who groomed a 14-year-old girl through an internet chatroom has been jailed for two-and-a-half years.
The court heard Kenneth Chapman, 40, from Swinton, Greater Manchester, called the girl his "princess".
He pleaded guilty to one charge of meeting following sexual grooming, one of possessing and six of distributing indecent images of children.
The judge at Minshull Street Crown Court called him a "sexual predator".
Chapman was also put on the sex offenders register, which disqualifies him from working with children for life.
Webcam contact
Chapman, who taught at Rivington and Blackrod High School, Bolton, until he left by mutual agreement last summer, met the girl on an online chatroom in August 2005.
The jury was told how their relationship escalated to mobile phone calls and her posing for him in front of a webcam.
In October 2005 they met and Chapman took her for lunch and showered her with gifts before kissing her goodbye.
Chapman admitted that he would have had sex with the girl had the opportunity arisen.
'Disgusting and degrading'
They remained in touch by text but within weeks the girl's family discovered the relationship and called the police.
Chapman was arrested at his school in February 2006.
Officers found he had stored 18 indecent images of children on his computer - including one that police categorised as the most serious.
Sentencing, Judge Roger Thomas QC, took into consideration positive references but said: "These offences show a much darker side of you, a side of you that portrays you as a man who is something of a sexual predator.
"This was an escalating and determined piece of grooming."
He told Chapman the indecent photographs were "disgusting and degrading material of real children".
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