Teacher was a paedophile

A DERBY primary school teacher photographed himself raping a little girl and had thousands of indecent pictures on his computer.

Among Neil Challis' collection of images were indecent photographs of two girls he took at schools where he worked.

The 35-year-old, who has worked at 13 schools in Derbyshire, was arrested in January after his eight-year-old rape victim, who was not one of his pupils, told her parents.

He had raped and sexually assaulted her since she was five years old, Derby Crown Court was told today.

After the girl finally told her parents about the abuse, police arrested Challis, of Old Chester Road, Chester Green, and found 3,940 indecent images of young girls on his laptop.

The majority of the pictures had been downloaded from the internet, but they included photographs of Challis abusing the eight-year-old girl, and photographs taken up the skirts of two pupils at schools where he worked.

Acting Detective Inspector Mark Knibbs, of Derbyshire police's public protection unit, was the senior investigating officer in the case.

He said: “Without her being so brave, there's every chance he would still be teaching in a school in Derby probably looking for his next victim.”

“I have never before dealt with a person this bad – in terms of what he did and the way he went about doing it.

“He is a manipulative, predatory paedophile.”

Det Insp Knibbs said he believed Challis only became a teacher because it would allow him to try to groom other children, although there was no evidence he physically sexually assaulted any of his pupils.

Challis pleaded guilty to 14 charges of rape, sexual assault, taking indecent pictures and possessing indecent pictures.

He is due to be sentenced next week.

Education authorities today said they had informed parents about the case.. They said Challis had been the subject of a criminal records check before being employed, but because he had committed no previous offences, it did not show up anything suspicious.

Police have contacted the parents of the two girls who were photographed at their school. But the girls have not been told.

Det Insp Knibbs said the police were “99.9 % sure” that there were no other victims.

He said Challis' rape victim had been extremely brave and had been videoed for hours while she relayed her evidence.

He said: “It was a long process – after years, there's lots to tell. And because she's a child and has a short attention span we didn't want to video her for long periods at a time.”