Teacher ‘sent girl photo of him nude apart from emoji’
A SCIENCE teacher sent a 15-year-old schoolgirl a photograph of himself naked with a smiley face emoji covering his genitals, a court heard.
Christopher Wood, 33, was also said to have shared pictures of himself having sex with women including his wife.
He had only been in his secondary school job for a matter of weeks when he added the girl on the social network Snapchat, where he used the tag ‘I don’t give a f***’, the court was told.
Prosecutor Michelle Heeley QC said the victim and a group of her friends began hanging around the chemistry lab where Wood was based at the school in Solihull, West Midlands. On two occasions he gave some of them alcoholic drinks, Birmingham Crown Court heard.
‘In December 2015 the Crown say Wood sent this girl several pictures of himself semi-naked,’ Miss Heeley said. ‘ They had a discussion about whether she was fat and going to the gym and she sent pictures of herself wearing a towel.’
Wood, who had started working at the school in September 2015, then sent her a picture of himself fully naked apart from the emoji – a small image used in electronic communications – and the teenager sent one of herself topless, the court heard.
The teacher sent other photos that became even more sexually explicit, said Miss Heeley. These allegedly included him engaged in sexual activity with women including his wife.
Jurors were also told that on one occasion Wood left his phone in the chemistry lab and some of the pupils started looking through it. ‘They found pornographic pictures including those of his wife,’ said Miss Heeley.
The prosecutor added that Wood had ‘ breached the trust placed in him’.
The court heard that when police examined his computer, they found images of girls in school uniform and garters.
They also discovered his internet searches included ‘student, teacher and sex’ in the period before he joined the school. Miss Heeley said this ‘showed he had an inappropriate interest in schoolgirls’.
Wood, now of Tregaron in Mid Wales, denies inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and two counts of causing a child to watch sexual activity by a person in a position of trust. The case continues.