Teacher Posed As Teenager Online to Sexually Abuse Young Boys

By Ashitha Nagesh
Metro
May 21, 2016

http://metro.co.uk/2016/05/21/teacher-posed-as-teenager-online-to-sexually-abuse-young-boys-5896213/

Richard Lythall has been jailed for three and a half years (Picture: SWNS)

A formerly respected school teacher pretended to be a teenager online to trick young boys into sexual activity.

Richard Lythall, 35, has now been jailed after police discovered a trove of child abuse images on his computer in March last year.

Officers also found that he had been posing as a 15-year-old boy in order to chat to boys of the same age, and exchange explicit images with them, over a four year period.

As a result of the allegations Lythall, who also worked as a church organist, immediately lost his job at Sir Thomas Boughey High School in Halmerend, Staffs.

He pleaded guilty to 15 offences at Chester Crown Court, and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

Sentencing, Judge Nicholas Woodward told him: ‘On the surface you appear to be a decent and respected member of the community and an experienced teacher. That you have done this with your background is extremely worrying.’

Lythall committed the catalogue of offences between January 24 2012, and March 24 2015.

They included attempting to cause a child to watch sexual activity, causing a child to engage in sexual activity, taking indecent images of a child, and possessing and distributing indecent images of children.

Lythall had been at the school for 12 years, and was considered a good teacher before the abuse came to light. Pupils wrote on Rate My Teacher that he was a ‘brilliant teacher’ and ‘so funny’.

So when the abuse came to light, senior staff members said they were ‘shocked and angry’ – and felt they had been betrayed by someone they had trusted.

The school’s headteacher Steve Gould said that Lythall was immediately dismissed after the allegations came to light last year.

‘The charges against him were outside his professional life and did not relate to his work at the school,’ he said.

‘We alerted parents at the earliest opportunity – we could not do anything while the criminal investigation was ongoing in case we impeded inquiries.’