A DISGRACED teacher who attempted sexual communication with a ‘child’ was not the victim of entrapment said the Worcester judge who jailed him.

Robert Howe, a former geography teacher at Tudor Grange Academy in Worcester, was jailed for two years at Worcester Crown Court for attempted sexual communication with a child and attempting to arrange/facilitate the commission of a child sex offence.

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The 34-year-old of Portland Street, Worcester, was in reality communicating not with a 15-year-old boy, as he believed, but with a so-called ‘decoy’ - an undercover police officer working to protect children from online sexual predators.

The communication, which began on Grindr before continuing on WhatsApp, occurred between April 13 and 21 this year.

The meeting ultimately did not take place on April 22 because Howe, who claimed he was lonely after his marriage collapsed, blocked the ‘boy’ after realising he had made what he called ‘a huge mistake’, developing what the prosecutor called ‘cold feet’.

Judge Nicolas Cartwright, sentencing the disgraced Scout leader, explained why the communication by police was not a form of entrapment as he jailed Howe.

He said it was important in such cases to impose a sentence which deterred others from similar behaviour.

Howe asked for photos of the boy and called him ‘cute’, reassuring him that ‘we can take it slow’.

Judge Cartwright said: “The boy did not exist - he was a fiction created by police officers who responded to your communication in a way that wasn’t designed to get you to say anything you weren’t otherwise going to say. There was no entrapment.”

He added: “There was an element of grooming in the way you incrementally built up sexual communication and the activity that was involved was plainly planned.”

The judge argued it was an aggravating feature of the case that there was a ‘gross disparity in age’ between Howe and the ‘child’ or decoy.

He added: “The meeting was to be in your house after you had finished your school day.”

However, he added: “It’s accepted that your voluntarily withdrew from this arrangement on the morning of that day.”

In sentencing he also took into account the defendant’s previous positive good character.

The probation service had identified Howe as ‘at least’ a medium risk to children.

“This is a case in which adequate punishment can only be achieved by an immediate rather than a suspended term of imprisonment.

It must be an immediate term on these facts.

It’s necessary to impose a deterrent sentence so that others are deterred from doing what you did.”

A sexual harm prevention order was also made which will restrict Howe’s contact with children and his use of the internet and internet-enabled devices for 10 years.

As a sex offender notification requirements also apply.