James John Matthews (43) admitted making 172 indecent images of children and distributing six of them in the Royal Court on Friday.

He appeared via video-link, with Advocate David Steenson acting as his defence lawyer.

The charges of making indecent images relate to before 24 December 2019, while the distribution ones relate to between 6 November 2014 and 7 January 2015.

In September 2020, Matthews, who had worked at St. John’s Primary School for nearly 20 years, was sentenced in Royal Court for two years and nine months after pleading guilty to possessing indecent images of children and sending “obscene” messages.

In December 2019, he was suspended from his job after Police received information that he was suspected to have downloaded indecent images of children. 

On 19 December 2019, Police searched his home, with Matthews also being interviewed that day. 

On Christmas Eve, the High-Tech Crime Unit found a message sent on Matthews’ iPhone with a graphic message about a seven-year-old girl, and another indicating an interest in indecent images of children, sent under the username of ‘@pandrews’. 

That same day, Matthews was arrested for possessing indecent images of children. When he was questioned under caution, he gave “no comment” to all questions, and was released on conditional police bail.  

After forensic analysis, 33 indecent images of children were recovered from deleted areas of the hard disk on Matthews’ desktop computer.

Deleted movie files, Dropbox activity and evidence of deleted Skype conversations provided evidence of Matthews’ sexual interest in children dating back to 2015. He also used the pseudonym ‘Paul Andrews’ on several profiles on this computer. 

It was also discovered that he had had correspondence with a local registered sex offender, with one featuring an image of a young child, which, though not indecent itself, was accompanied by explicit sexual references. 

Matthews will be sentenced in relation to the new offences before the Superior Number – a panel of Jurats that only gathers for the most serious offences – on 1 November 2021.