Disgraced former Harrogate headteacher spared jail after making over 3,000 indecent images of children

Matthew Shillito, 43, repeatedly visited a Russian website where he viewed sickening images of children, York Magistrates’ Court heard.

Shillito, who was appointed head teacher at Western Primary School in 2019, was arrested after police searched his home in January 2020 and seized a Dell laptop and Macbook Pro, on which they found thousands of vile sexual images of under-age girls.

Today (Friday, September 9) district judge Adrian Lower told Shillito his teaching career was now “in ruins” as he handed him an 18-month community order with 200 hours of unpaid work.

Shillito, wearing a sombre grey suit, was also placed on the disbarring lists preventing him working with children ever again.

Mr Lower said that Shillito’s fall into “complete disgrace” and “loss of your good character” were “punishment enough”, more so than any sentence he could impose, including jail.

Shillito was convicted of the offences last month following a trial at the magistrates’ court. He had denied making 20 Category B images and 3,829 Category C images between September 2007 and December 2015, claiming the illegal images inadvertently found their way onto his devices while he was looking at other photographs online.

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But judge Mr Lower found him guilty of both counts and said the evidence against the disgraced former teacher was “incontrovertible and inescapable”.

Shillito - who was previously head teacher across the Goldsborough Sicklinghall Federation of schools, including one in Knaresborough - had claimed that he was searching for holiday snaps on the various web pages he visited because he had an interest in photography.

He also claimed the web visits were for educational purposes and that he had an interest in beach naturism.

None of the offences related to Shillito’s employment at any of the schools where he worked.

But prosecutor Philip Morris said that Shillito - who was understood to be in a relationship until shortly before his arrest - had visited some of these websites “30 or 40 times”. One of these websites was called ‘Pre-Teen Love’.

“It is deliberate and intentional, repeat viewing of (indecent) images and (web) pages,” he added.

There was evidence of Shillito viewing the illicit images way back in 2011 and then again in 2015 when further images and “albums” with titles such as ‘Girls Line Up’ and ‘Girls Love Girls’ were found as part of a cache that had been backed up from an iPad Mini onto the Macbook Pro.

He had used search terms such as ‘Lolita’ while trawling the web for the illicit material, said Mr Morris.

Shillito admitted only that he had searched the web for naturist sites “because he was intrigued by naturism”.

When asked about his highly dubious search history, he admitted visiting various dodgy websites but for purely educational purposes because he was “dissatisfied in the way sex education was being taught at school”.

Shillito thought he had hidden any evidence of wrongdoing by deleting the offending material, but it was found in the back-up cache which he would have been able to access.

After being arrested in January 2020, he was immediately suspended from his teaching post and subsequently dismissed.

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Kevin Blount, mitigating, said that Shillito had since “re-trained in another role” following the collapse of his teaching career.

He added: “Clearly these are matters that are going to live with him for the rest of his life.”

Judge Mr Lower told Shillito: “I know you are a man of (previous) good character. You have worked in the teaching profession for a number of years, achieving the rank of being a headmaster and I’ve no reason to (doubt) that you did all that was expected of you in the course of your employment.”

He added, however, that Shillito’s “disgrace is complete” following the discovery of the sordid images.

He said Shillito had a “corrosive, addictive interest” in viewing indecent images of children.

“You will realise…that you are never going to work in the teaching profession again, a profession to which…you gave your all,” added Mr Lower. “This kind of behaviour is serious and the law-abiding public…would expect me to send a strong message to people like you, that if you are guilty of this behaviour you are going to be punished for it and you can have no complaint about that.”

Imposing the 18-month community order, Mr Lower told Shillito: “The very fact that you have been found guilty and the consequences that follow from that is probably more punishment to you than anything else (in terms of sentence) I can propose.”

As well as unpaid work hours, Shillito will also have to complete 24 days’ rehabilitation activity. He was placed on the sex-offenders’ register for five years and made subject to a five-year sexual-harm prevention order to curb his internet activities and allow police to monitor his online use.

He was also ordered to pay £600 prosecution costs and a £60 victim surcharge.

Detective Constable Andy Lowes, of North Yorkshire Police’s Online Abuse and Exploitation Team, said: “North Yorkshire Police is committed to preventing child sexual abuse, helping victims and bringing offenders to justice.

“Those who obtain and distribute child-abuse material directly contribute to the sexual exploitation of children. This is because the children involved are continually re-victimised every time the images are viewed.”