Footage of teacher Nigel Leat being questioned by police
A primary school teacher who admitted filming himself sexually abusing girls in his classroom has been jailed indefinitely.
Nigel Leat, 51, of Bloomfield Road, Bristol, filmed his abuse of five girls at Hillside First School, Weston-super-Mare, over five years.
The charges included attempted rape, 22 of sexual assault and eight of sexual assault by penetration.
When Leat was arrested he had 30,500 indecent photographs in his possession.
Judge Neil Ford at Bristol Crown Court told Leat his “treatment of the girls was clever, cunning, insidious and wicked”.
He said: “You were able to behave in this way because you were a teacher entrusted to look after children.
“I believe you represent a risk of serious harm to young girls. You have a strong paedophilic drive.”
He will only be released when he is no longer considered a threat, danger or risk to the public and especially young girls.
Leat was given an indeterminate sentence with a term of 24 years. It will be at least eight-and-a-half years before he could be considered for parole.
During the hearing, Leat sat with his head bowed looking at the floor.
“A little earlier he was smiling at people, recognising them and nodding,” said BBC correspondent Jon Kay.
Families of the children sobbed as they listened to the judge outlining Leat’s offences.
Det Supt Geoff Wessell, of Avon and Somerset Police, said Leat had abused the children in the “most sick” way.
“Nigel Leat is a predatory paedophile of the most sickening order who has preyed on the children on his school.
“The abuse of trust, I have never come across anything so extreme as this. I hope the sentence will bring comfort to the school.
“Nigel Leat will not be coming into the community again for a considerable length of time and will never again work with children.”
Mr Wessell said work with the victims and wider community was on-going.
North Somerset Council said they were awaiting the outcome of a serious case review into what happened.
The BBC’s Jon Kay said the authority had seen “no evidence that it was lax in spotting or dealing with Nigel Leat’s paedophile behaviour”.
The council said concerns, raised by a colleague of Leat’s at the school, had not been passed on to them.
On Friday, the court was told how Leat molested the girls as they practised their reading aloud in class.
Police said he used to identify “star pupils” and shower them with gifts before abusing them in one-to-one reading sessions.
Leat could be heard in the films referring to the girls as “sweetie pie” and “darling” and asking them how much they loved him.
The videos, in most of which Leat could be seen, showed girls were abused in the school’s staff room and a resource room.
Leat, a father-of-two, initially denied all the claims against him, but he confessed after police found the films on his home computer.
After police arrested him on 13 December last year, they discovered the thousands of indecent photographs and 720 indecent movies in his possession.
Det Supt Geoff Wessell: ”Nigel Leat is a predatory paedophile of the most sickening order”
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