Former Sholing Technology College teacher Eliot Easterby found guilty after hundreds of indecent images found at his home

But that was all a smokescreen to hide Eliot Easterby’s perverted interest in young boys.

Now the former Southampton maths teacher is facing jail after being found guilty of possessing hundreds of indecent images of underage boys.

The 44-year-old’s crimes were first discovered after police thousands of miles away in Canada tipped off their colleagues in Hampshire as part of a major international operation.

Officers swooped on the former parish councillor’s address in Hamble last year, and as well as seizing hundreds of images they also found “a large number of boys’ underpants”.

Eliot Easterby

Easterby was found guilty just weeks after fellow former Sholing Technology College teacher Edmund Warbrick was given a suspended sentence for admitting owning disturbing images of children.

Yesterday it took a jury less than an hour to find the former Hamble Parish councillor guilty of 13 offences of possessing and making indecent images of young boys, and not guilty of one other charge.

He sobbed in the dock after the verdict was delivered, and a judge at Southampton Crown Court told him that “all options are open” when he is sentenced next month.

Hampshire Constabulary say the force was contacted by police in Canada who had “uncovered possible offences as part of a large-scale international operation”.

Officers arrived at his home in Barton Drive, at 6.45am on January 22 last year and carried out a detailed search that lasted four-and-a-half hours.

They found ten DVDs and searched his computer, a hard drive and three memory sticks on which they found 669 indecent images.

Almost 300 pictures had been viewed on the computer but deleted.

Another 375 images had also been downloaded and had been stored.

The DVDs included titles called Water Wiggles and More Water Wiggles show ing boys in paddling pools.

Easterby, a former leader at Hamble Sea Scouts and author of several “teenage ghost books” was questioned by police and subsequently charged.

The day after his arrest he resigned from Hamble Parish Council, where he had been a councillor for four years, citing “personal reasons”.

At court he accepted he had owned and made the images, but denied they were indecent.

However the jury delivered a unanimous verdict that he was guilty of 13 of the 14 charges he faced.

Eliot Easterby

After the verdict, Judge Peter Henry told the court that boys’ underpants had also been found in his bedroom, while a search of his internet history had discovered searches for similar indecent images.

He said: “I am troubled by the fact that a large number of pairs of boys’ underpants were found in his bedroom and I am troubled by the fact that there were searches on the internet of this type.

“It seems to me that this goes directly to a sexual interest in boys.”Easterby was bailed ahead of sentencing on March 13, and Judge Henry ordered an interim sexual offences prevention order banning him from using devices to access the internet where history can be deleted or where images can be stored.