DISGRACED teacher's career is in ruins after he was jailed for downloading child pornography.
Christopher Wayne Booth, 45, of Alltami had been a teacher in the Wrexham area for more than 20 years but resigned when governors became concerned about his interest in a 14-year-old girl.
Booth, of Pottery House, Alltami Road, was jailed for 15 months, ordered to register as a sex offender for 10 years and was also made the subject of an indefinite sexual offences prevention order.
Under that order, Booth - who admitted that in the past he had filmed young girls - cannot possess a camera or camcorder, and he must not access the internet.
He is also banned from befriending or contacting young girls, or allowing them into his home.
Booth admitted four specimen charges of making indecent images of children by downloading them off the internet, after specialist police officers found a total of 153 still images and 11 movie images on his computer.
Prosecutor Mair ap Mihangel said 10 of the images and two of the movie films were of the serious level four category.
Judge Huw Daniel, who viewed some of the images, said some of the children who had been photographed being abused were as young as five.
Each of the photographs showed a child being abused and by down-loading them he was helping to encourage those who set them up in the first place.
The judge said Booth was not prepared to accept the reality of his situation and did not accept that he had an interest in young girls.
'Because you have this dreadful flaw in your character, you have lost a long and successful teaching career,' the judge told him.
'I am afraid I have no option but to send you to prison for these offences, but that is your responsibility. I have my responsibility and that is to the community in which we live.'
The judge said a report on Booth showed that he was unwilling to face up to the reality of his problem and had tried to minimise his involvement and his motivation.
The court heard how police executed a warrant under the Protection of Children Act at the home he shared with his elderly mother on June 3 and he handed officers prints depicting children in indecent poses which he said had been sent to him via e-mail.
But Miss ap Mihangel said that there was no evidence of photo attachments being sent to Booth in e-mails and it was the prosecution case that he had downloaded them.
Booth claimed that loneliness and depression was the catalyst for the offences and in interview admitted spending hours looking for porn on the internet and subscribing to child porn sites.
Booth claimed the offences took place in 2003, but specialist IT officers were able to establish that he had been offending up to the day before his arrest.
Myles Wilson, defending, said Booth was a man of no previous convictions and his guilty pleas to such offences had brought shame on himself and his family.
It was an important feature that the images had not been saved in the computer. Booth had deleted them and would be unable to look at them again.
There was no question of distribution, he had not built up a large library of images, and they had only been retrieved by the police using special software enabling them to do so.
It was his case that he was not attracted to young girls.
Booth had been asked to resign from the school where he had taught for 23 years by the governors although the headteacher had wanted to keep him on.
Booth felt that the girl had problems at home, had turned to him for help, and he had given her a mobile telephone and had sent her four text messages.
Mr Wilson said that there was clearly work to be done with Booth and that was the best hope of reducing any risk.
A prison sentence would also be difficult for Booth's elderly mother.
Mr Wilson explained that Booth cared for his mother and did her shopping and cleaning.
