When police seized Stuart Street’s iphone on October 12, 2021, ‘he suggested, rather weakly, that it might have been hacked,’ said Mark Achurch, prosecuting.

Analysis revealed images and videos of girls, aged between eight and 12, along with prohibited drawings of girls engaged in sexual activity.

Nottingham Crown Court heard he took on the persona of a 13-year-old child in online chats and ‘expressed the view – whether in character or not – that he would like to have sex with a child’.

On June 19 he sent category A movies and category C images to one user, and between March and October, 2021, he shared 14 items with seven different correspondents.

Street, aged 26, of Mansfield Road, Edingley, near Southwell, admitted possessing and distributing category A and C images, and possessing prohibited and extreme pornography.

Recorder Stuart Sprawson told him: “You engaged with others who had a mutual and similar interest in indecent images.

“You encouraged them to spread them among the community that engages in this type of criminal activity.

“But for your arrest your offending may well have continued. Your career as a teacher should have brought into focus the seriousness of you offending.”

The judge said that in a pre-sentence report Street denied deriving sexual gratification from the images, but he asked others for their experience and knowledge.

On Thursday, Street received a 17-month prison sentence.

He was also made the subject of a ten-year sexual harm prevention order and placed on the sex offenders register for ten years.