A RELIGIOUS education teacher tricked boys into sending him indecent images of themselves by the internet or phone by pretending to be a promiscuous teenage girl.
Stephen David Grant gave the impression the girl was a niece of his called Charlotte who needed a boyfriend when, in reality, he was the person at the other end of the line making sexy suggestions.
Michael Smith, prosecuting, told Leeds Crown Cour
t yesterday that Grant had taught some of the youths involved in Dewsbury and they liked and trusted him so it never crossed their mind the 17 or 18-year-old girl talking "dirty" to them was anything other than a member of the opposite sex.
Some of the teenagers went along with her request to send her sexually explicit pictures, although others refused in spite of her promising to send pictures back of herself.
One 16-year-old was sent pictures purporting to come from the girl showing her involved in sexual acts in return for his performing a sexual act in front of a web cam. Because he then regretted what he had done, he stopped contact with her, only to receive persistent text messages asking why he was no longer in touch.
Grant, a former Mirfield Town councillor, was arrested in June last year and denied any sexual gratification involved, blaming a specific physical interest.
Dermot Hughes, for Grant, said he was a "troubled soul" who was now seen as a social leper.
The offences were in fact juvenile and amateurish and, however disturbing for the youths and families involved, they were also rooted in fantasy, showing he needed help, Mr Hughes said.
Grant, 31, of Northway Gardens, Mirfield, near Dewsbury, admitted eight charges of inciting children to sexual activity while in a position of trust involving a total of seven youths.
He will be sentenced today by the Recorder of Leeds, Judge Peter Collier QC.
