RICHARD CLARK

Richard Clark , the Son of Stockton-on-Tees Labour councillor.

A teacher labelled a "malign puppet master" has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for manipulating people worldwide into sexually abusing children in their care.Richard Clark, 29, from Topcliffe Road in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, used multiple fake identities to control and exploit his targets.

He persuaded them to create and send explicit images and videos of children, which he secretly recorded for his own sexual gratification.

In some instances, he convinced individuals to provide footage of their own children, grandchildren, or siblings being abused.

One victim was so young that a nappy was visible in the photograph.

Police had first gone to his address at Stockton, where his mother and brother still lived.

While officers made their way to the school where he taught to arrest him, his mother warned her son and he uninstalled his Snapchat apps on his phone along with a teenage dating app.

Clark pleaded guilty to 26 charges, with a further 54 offences taken into consideration.

The offending took place between April 2016 and April 2018 and came to an end when he was arrested by North Yorkshire Police.He was jailed for 12 years, to be followed by eight years on licence.Sentencing him on Tuesday, Judge Andrew Stubbs QC said: “You are an educated and intelligent man, and you used that intelligence to create a web of false identities to offend both here and around the world.