Former Devon teacher jailed for grooming undercover police officers

Perry was arrested at the airport on the way to a summer camp in the US in June last year

A former music teacher has been jailed for attempting to groom undercover police posing online as girls under 16.

Christopher Perry, 30, sent explicit messages to decoy accounts from two separate forces over weeks last year.

Perry admitted two counts of attempting to incite a child to sexual activity and two of attempted sexual communication with a child.

Perry, of Lancaster Drive, Paignton, was jailed for two years and eight months at Exeter Crown Court.

Perry was caught after sending explicit messages to fake accounts of girls aged 11 and 12 from the North West Regional Crime Unit and West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit, the court heard.

Sex offenders register

He was arrested at Gatwick Airport as he headed for a summer camp in Philadelphia in June 2019, after police became concerned at his potential contact with children.

Judge Peter Johnson also put Perry on the sex offenders register for life and made him subject of a indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order, allowing police to monitor his online activity.

He said: "It is clear you were doing it for your own sexual gratification, which you described in graphic detail.

"It is quite clear the harm you intended to cause. The problem with online or remote abuse is that there is a risk of being oblivious or uncaring about the psychological effect.

"It is impossible to pick up visual cues and there is a risk of causing incalculable harm through the inappropriate early sexualisation of children."