Primary teacher who secretly filmed pupils jailed for 18 months
A PRIMARY teacher who secretly filmed young girls at the school where he worked has been jailed for 18 months.
James Hughes, 54, used his phone and iPad to record pupils after taking them out of class for one-to-one lessons.
He would get the girls to sit on chairs while he recorded them under a desk. Hughes, who was a principal teacher at the school in North Lanarkshire, was caught only when three teenagers on work experience there discovered him filming them.
One of the girls went into his office and found photos of herself on his iPad and reported him. Police were called and a search of his school office and home in Uddingston, Lanarkshire, uncovered 260 images and 79 recordings on his phone and computers.
Hughes admitted two charges of voyeurism under the Sexual Offences Scotland Act by secretly filming and photographing girls aged between eight and 16 between October and November last year.
He was suspended from his post when the allegations were made and has since been sacked. Yesterday he was jailed at Airdrie Sheriff Court and placed on the sex offenders’ register for ten years.
Furious parents whose children had fallen victim to Hughes attended court and hit out at the sentence.
One mother said: ‘This is an absolute joke. My daughter can’t sleep at night because of what he has done to her and he only gets 18 months.
‘It would make you sick. He’ll be out quickly and we’ll have another pervert roaming the streets.
‘This can’t be right. He abused our children and this isn’t justice.’
Defence advocate Gavin Anderson said Hughes wanted to offer a ‘public and unreserved’ apology for his crimes.
Sheriff Petra Collins told Hughes: ‘The offending and the breach of trust involved means there is no alternative to custody.’