91Èȱ¬

A maths teacher has been jailed for sexually abusing two of his female pupils over a number of years.

Tobias Yates, 31, from Derby, engaged in sexual activity with one of the teenagers in his classroom, at his home and at her house.

He pleaded guilty to 18 sexual offences charges relating to children, and was sentenced to 10 years and six months at Derby Crown Court.

Judge Robert Egbuna said Yates was "a man who preyed on young women".

The court heard how the father-of-one kept sex toys in the drawer of his desk at Chellaston Academy, where he carried out the abuse until 2019.

The abuse started with one of the girls when she was 13.

He exchanged 250,000 messages with one victim and threatened to take his own life if the girls did not reply to him, or if they revealed he was a paedophile.

Judge Egbuna said he was "an astute man who had armoury" in his grasp "to abuse and take advantage of their frailties".

He added, in the words of one of the girls, that Yates "cared for his own child while abusing a child of other parents".

Both of the victims read statements in court.

One of the victims said: "A school classroom - where I should have felt safe, I suffered traumatic abuse."

She said the abuse started "with hugs as I left the classroom" and later led to Yates touching her intimately.

"I was so scared of doing something wrong," she added.

Yates, of Merevale Way, Stenson Fields, was also handed a sexual harassment prevention order and was put on the sex offender's register.

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