A schoolteacher who incited a girl to commit sex acts in an internet chatroom and downloaded child abuse images has been jailed for two years nine months.

Matthew Back was told by a judge: "You are a primary school teacher. You have single-handedly destroyed your career. I am satisfied you will never ever be able to teach again."

The 31-year-old, of Winstanely Road, Sheerness, was supported in court by his wife, who suffers from the debilitating medical condition ME, and family and friends.

Maidstone Crown Court heard how police raided his home and found 282 child sex abuse images on his computer. Three were at the highest level of five and 77 at level four.

Edmund Burge, prosecuting, said some of the pictures showed a baby of no more than one year and a five-year-old girl being sexually assaulted.

Officers also discovered videos showing a 15-year-old girl in school uniform. Back had gone into a chatroom and persuaded her to perform sex acts on herself.

Judge Philip Statman told him: "You must have felt safe, knowing you were at your home address and she was many miles away, almost sanitising yourself from the activity that was being conducted."

Mr Burge stressed that there had been no improper behaviour involving Minster Primary School, where Back taught.

He admitted inciting a child to engage in sexual activity on June 16 last year, three charges of making indecent photographs of a child and 10 of possessing indecent photographs of a child.

Back was banned from working with children and placed on the sex offenders' register, both for life.