Ex teacher guilty of sexual communication with a 12-year-old girl

A former teacher who sent two videos of himself performing a sexual act to a 12-year-old girl later discovered she was an undercover police officer.

He was sentenced today after a jury at Plymouth Crown Court last month unanimously found Stephen Lewis Squire of Harbourne Ford, South Brent, guilty of three charges following a trial: attempting to cause or incite a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity; attempting to cause a child to watch a sexual act and of attempting to sexually communicate with a child. The offences took place during the month of June 2020.

During the three day trial at Plymouth Crown Court, which ended on Friday November 8, the court heard from police witnesses as well as from Squire himself who claimed he had a higher sex drive than his wife, to whom he had been married for ten years.

The jury had been told that communication had taken place on social media platforms including Snapchat, KIK and Chat Avenue between a male adult profile and a 12-year-old female. The account profile of the 12-year-old female was actually an undercover officer posing as a child while the male profile was Squire.

The communication took place between June 3, 2020 and June 29, 2020.

During this communication, Squire stated he was 34 years old, from Devon, was called 'Steve' and was a teacher. During this time he sent images of his face. Squire initiated sexual conversation and discussed sexual acts and sent numerous explicit images of himself and requested explicit images of the 12-year-old.

Following a question from the jury as they deliberated, Judge Matthew Turner confirmed they had been told that in response to the question "what do you do at work" from the 'girl' Gemma, Squire replied "I'm a teacher", claiming he taught children aged 11 to 18 in a secondary school.

Squire, aged 39, appeared at Plymouth Crown Court today [Thursday December 12] to be sentenced.

In mitigation, Squire's advocate, Michael Green accepted that a pre-sentence report showed that his client still denied the offence. Mr Green said that while Squire had shown an understanding of the seriousness of the offences within society and the effect it has on victims, he seemed unable to recognise it with regards to his own actions.

He noted how Squire had no previous convictions and the offending period was only over the period of less than a month. He also noted that the effects of him being jailed would have an impact on his family, some of whom had attending his trial and were in court for the sentencing hearing.

He also cited three reference letters, one from his mother and two from friends, stating that he had "a lot of good qualities".

Judge Matthew Turner said Squire had sought out the "teen chatroom" and had been told by 'Gemma' she was just 12-years-old. She sent him two photographs "which showed a young female" and her descriptions of her life were consistent with being a child, including attending school.

He told Squire: "The jury rejected your assertion that you believed Gemma to be an adult engaged in role play and found that you believed that she was under the age of 13.

"The messages you sent included [on June 5, 2020] where you encouraged Gemma to penetrate her vagina with her middle fingers and [on June 9, 2020] asked her if she wanted to repeat exploring her vagina with her finger again and encouraged her to do it.

"[On June 17, 2020] You sent two videos of yourself masturbating. You said that you wanted Gemma to get naked, for her to touch your penis, you talk of playing with her vagina and for her to do the same and you asked if she would lick your penis and put it in her mouth."

He noted mitigating factors such as that Squire had no previous convictions or cautions and these were attempts. He also noted there had been no offending since this offence back in 2020. He also noted the delay between the offence and the sentencing, which emphasised the "isolated period of offending".

Judge Turner noted that as a result of the offence Squire had lost his job as a teacher, but he said that this would have meant that Squire had "a clear understanding of the impact on children that online sexual exploitation can have."

As a result of the aggravating and mitigating factors he passed a total sentence of three years and four months. He told Squire he would be released at the half-way point and remain on licence for the remainder of the sentence.

He reminded Squire that he was now subject of a Sex Offenders Register notification as of November 8 which would remain indefinitely. He said Squire would be subject of the barring and disqualification service and subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for the next 10 years.

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