A teacher who was found guilty of possessing over 4,000 indecent images of children has been spared a prison sentence.
Trainee teacher, Andrew Moore, 28, was discovered as threat to children when he was working in a PE department.
Once police were alerted to an image he had downloaded, deemed to be indecent from online platform Tumblr, they detained him at the school he worked at, which can’t be named.
This week a court heard how sick Moore first denied any wrong doing before authorities seized his electronic devices.
Officers found over 4,000 images on two laptops, two iPhones, an iPod and a kindle at Moore’s home in Clough Meadow, Stockport.
At Minshull Street Crown Court, Prosecuting, Suzanne Hargreaves revealed how Moore was discovered to have been posing as a 14-year-old girl online, had a number of different profiles and had been exchanging images using messenger service Kik.
Ms Hargreaves told the court how Moore was particularly interested in boys aged six to eight years old.
Moore, who has no previous convictions, admitted he had been collecting images since he was 13 years old.
Approximately 4,000 images both moving and still were discovered across the devices and had been collected from January 2010 to May 2019.
Judge Recorder Rankin described Moore, who had previously worked at two other schools, as “an isolated young man who found it hard to form friendships.”
Moore pleaded guilty to possessing, making and distributing indecent photos and possessing a prohibited image.
Judge Rankin gave credit for Moore’s previous good character and his guilty plea and took into account the fact the case had been hanging over his head since his arrest in August 2019.
He said a lack of police manpower was responsible for the length of time it had taken to be heard in court.
He sentenced Moore to a 24 month custodial sentence suspended for 12 months, 200 hours unpaid work, ten years on the sex offenders register and 24 sessions on the iHorizon programme - a sex offenders treatment programme.
