A JUDGE has caused outrage by jailing for only three-and-a-half years a primary school teacher who secretly took indecent pictures of pupils and fantasised about killing a child.

Maurice George Turner, 54, from Little Hulton, Salford, used a camcorder hidden in a bag to snap the children at schools in Eccles, Salford and Bury.

Manchester Crown Court was told he also exchanged e-mails with other paedophiles and fantasised about having sex with a child at school, abducting a child, raping a four-year-old and making a "snuff" movie in which a child would be killed.

Today police, a parent of one of his victims and a council boss expressed dismay at the sentence and called on the Crown Prosecution Service to lodge an appeal to get it increased.

Turner, of Manchester Road West, was working as a supply teacher at a primary school in Eccles when he was arrested last October.

He pleaded guilty to 19 offences of taking, making and distributing indecent photos of children. He also admitted possessing 2,500 indecent internet images of children, including child torture. He asked for 30 other offences to be considered.

Judge Johnathan Geake said he gave Turner credit for pleading guilty but said as well as committing the offences he had exchanged "vile and disgusting" internet messages. He said Turner's decent life had taken a shameful and disgraceful downward turn and he now had a bleak future.

He added that he had been ensnared by internet exhanges and became addicted to indecent images.

But the parent of one little girl who Turner secretly filmed at a Salford school said: "The sentence is beyond belief.

"The court was told he fantasised about kidnapping children and yet he could be out, back on the streets within months as he has already spent four months in custody on remand.

"There must be an appeal against this man's sentence. I was expecting him to get about seven years. The pictures he took of my daughter are still out there on the internet and there is nothing anyone can do about it."

Det Const Andrea Bradley, who arrested Turner, said the sentence fell within guidelines.

"This was a guilty plea so there must be some leniency," she said. "However, two years ago there was a similar case involving a youth worker from Bolton who was in possession of indecent images of children and he received a five-year sentence, which was considered to be a suitable one. I am therefore surprised by three-and-a-half years for Turner."

She added that all the parents of the children that Turner had secretly taken pictures of, and could be identified, had been informed.

Salford council leader Coun John Merry said: "I want the CPS to review this case to look at the prospects of launching an appeal for a longer sentence.

"The sentence does seem to be very strange in view of the disturbing evidence."

Tom Fitzpatrick, counsel for Turner, said he was a "broken man, through his own fault, humiliated publicly, and vilified publicly."

He said that Turner had become desensitised to indecent images of children, which at first disturbed him, but then fascinated and obsessed him.

As reported in the Manchester Evening News a Greater Manchester Local Education Authority launched an investigation last year after it was claimed Turner had caused concern two years before he was arrested.

It was claimed a colleague at a school where Turner was working reported suspicions about his behaviour to the head teacher.
Tweet