A FORMER Scout leader and teacher has been handed a two-year suspended prison sentence for possessing “revolting and degrading” images and videos of boys.

Phil Oakley, 54, a former technology tutor at Barnard Castle School, appeared for sentencing at York Crown Court on Monday (February 19), after pleading guilty to charges relating to the possession of more than 1,000 indecent images and videos of children.

He was charged with three counts of distributing indecent images of children, three of making indecent images and one of possessing prohibited images of children.

The court heard how in April last year a device belonging to Oakley had been used to connect to the internet, which contained indecent images of children.

Prosecutor Chris Dunne told the court police arrested Oakley at his home on Station Drive, Ripon in May last year and seized a number of devices. They were found to contain 77 videos and 63 images classed in the most serious, category A, bracket, some of which he had shared with other individuals online.

They also found to contain about 500 category B and C videos and more than 1,000 images in the same categories. Police also found 30 prohibited images of children and five prohibited images of a child.

They all involved the abuse of boys aged between ten and 16.

Further examination also revealed an email which showed a request to stay on the family field on a naturist holiday and other material on nudist holidays.

It also revealed software to allow peer-to-peer file sharing and that he had accepted eight requests to share two category A images of 13 to 16-year-olds.

The court heard after his arrest he had attempted to deal with his behaviour by referring himself voluntarily to the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, which tackles child sexual abuse by working with abusers.

The disgraced teacher had worked at Barnard Castle School, a leading independent school in County Durham, until May last year when he was suspended as soon as bosses learnt of the investigation by North Yorkshire Police. The school began disciplinary proceedings immediately.

Headteacher Tony Jackson said in a statement following Monday's court case: "The evidence given in court confirmed that no pupil, past or present, of our school was involved. However, this in no way lessens the responsibility we all have to be vigilant and to safeguard all children from being harmed online."

Oakley was also a leader with the Explorer Scouts in North Yorkshire and in 2010 helped lead a group of 15 to 19-year-olds on a trekking and kayaking expedition from the edge of the Sahara Desert through the Atlas Mountains to Marrakech. He undertook the trip two years after losing part of his leg due to cancer and being fitted with a prosthetic limb.

He has now been barred for life from volunteering with the Scout movement.

Oakley had also been a volunteer at Ripon's workhouse and prison museums, helping on the cash tills.

The Honorary Recorder of York, Judge Paul Batty QC gave Oakley a two year suspended prison sentence and ordered him to complete a Horizon offenders’ programme.

The former teacher was also placed on the sexual offenders’ register for ten years, given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for the same period and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £1,250.

In giving his sentence, Judge Batty told him: “You have hitherto led a blameless life, indeed placed before me are character references that speak to the other side of your character.

“Both in education of young children, your time in the scout movement over many years and these references speak of just that view. The high view that people have had of you in the past. Of course you had - and indeed hid - a very dark side to your character.

“These issue of course a question of your sexuality, but it is your obsession with under-age boys as evidenced by the very considerable number of images and videos that you had in your possession.”

Judge Batty added: “You were receiving this revolting and degrading material for your own sexual gratification, no more, not less, than that.”

He added that given Oakley’s background in education, he could not ignore the context in which he was viewing the images, adding: “You’re an intelligent man and perfectly well must have known how very wrong this was.”