Teacher filmed pupils undressing

A TAMESIDE teacher who recorded children changing in a classroom pleaded guilty to voyeurism and making indecent photographs.

At a hearing at Manchester and Salford Magistrates' Court yesterday, Gavin Ellins (45), of Forsyth Street, Rochdale, pleaded guilty to two counts of voyeurism, relating to a child, and six counts of making indecent photographs or pseudo photographs of children between September 1, 2010 and November 5, 2015.

The charges refer to incidents that took place in Tameside and Stockport.

On November 5 officers attended his home with a warrant and found various hard drives as well as pen drives with indecent category C images of children who appeared to be between the ages of eight and 11.

A 20-minute recording of children changing in a classroom was also found by police officers.

In total the charges relate to 71 indecent images of children which also include content of video recordings.

Ellins, represented by Gemma Zakrzewski, wore a white shirt and navy blue suit and spoke only to confirm his name, date of birth, address and guilty plea at the hearing.

Ellins, who has no previous convictions, will be referred to Manchester Crown Court for sentencing on Thursday, September 1 as his offences were deemed so serious that the magistrates could not deal with it.

The magistrates court has ordered a probation report, which they will send to the crown court prior to sentencing, and they have already placed Ellins on the sex offenders register.

Conditional bail was granted on the understanding that Ellins has no unsupervised contact with any person under the age of 18 without written consent from social services.