A PAEDOPHILE teacher is starting his second prison sentence for abusing boys – this time an extended term for the protection of the public.

Aaron Ledean, from Crook, County Durham, was branded a danger and was told by a judge that he had destroyed his victim's life.

The sexual predator was given a custodial term of four years with an extended period of three-and-a-half years on licence after his release.

Ledean was jailed in 2013 for sexually assaulting a teenager in the 1990s, when he was told by a judge: "You took advantage of his age, his inexperience and his, at that stage, undecided sexuality."

His victim had developed a crush on Ledean, and consented to the activity after being taken to venues in Middlesbrough and introduced to the gay scene.

Ledean, who was in his 20s when the abuse happened, was prosecuted years later because of the boy's youth at the time.

On Monday, Teesside Crown Court heard that the 46-year-old former science teacher also groomed a 14-year-old in the early 2000s when he lived in a Hartlepool marina flat.

Prosecutor Aisha Wadoodi said Ledean treated the "highly-vulnerable" teenager to cigarettes and frozen kebabs after he confided in him about difficulties he was having at home before abusing him.

In 2006, Ledean was dismissed from his job at a Teesside school following an anonymous tip-off led police to finding thousands of images of child abuse, but he was given a suspended sentence.

His first accuser came forward years later, and Ledean was found guilty after a trial and jailed for four years in 2013.

After being released, he was arrested again last year when another teenager confided in his family and then a psychiatric hospital counsellor that he had been abused.

When he was being interviewed by police, the victim was physically sick as he recounted his ordeal.

Ledean, of The Paddock, Billy Row, pleaded guilty to three charges of indecent assault and one of indecency with a child.

He was told by Judge Hickey: "The impact statement from the victim makes harrowing reading, revealing as it does the destruction of this young man's life.

"The offending was a course of conduct which illustrates grooming behaviour, leading on to more and more serious offending against this highly-vulnerable young man."

Robin Denny, mitigating, said: "He has not committed any offence of this nature for some 15 years, and that's a matter of some importance. There is no issue of him going out of his way to track down vulnerable people."