South London teaching assistant jailed after grooming boy

Charlie Territt, who worked at Streatham Wells Primary School, was sentenced to seven years in prison on Thursday (April 23) by a judge who described him as having a “perverted fixation” with the victim.

Prosecutor Bhavin Patel said that throughout 2024, Territt engaged in late-night conversations with a vulnerable child on Snapchat.

The 32-year-old sent sexual videos of himself and incited the child to send similar videos in return.

Noticing a change in behaviour, the victim's elder sibling inspected the Snapchat account and discovered Territt’s vile messages.

The abuse was reported to the police and on January 3 last year, police attended Territt’s home in South Bermondsey where they seized several phones and sex toys.

Mr Patel said: "Whilst police were inside his home, a car left the property. The driver and occupant were the defendant’s brother and cousin. The car was stopped and two more mobile phones were seized.”

Territt denied the abuse in interview and continued to do so after being charged, until an analysis of his phone revealed a sexual video of the victim as well as indecent images of three other children.

Facing “incontrovertible evidence”, according to Judge Silas Reid, Territt then pleaded guilty to causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, causing a child to watch a sexual act, sexual communication with a child and making indecent photographs of children aged between 10 and 16.

Defending, John Waller said his client was “extremely remorseful and disgusted with himself”.

However, he said his client denied being a paedophile and that “it was an attraction to this child as opposed to a wider interest”.

When Judge Reid questioned why, if he is not a paedophile, Territt had sexual images of other children too, Mr Waller said there were not as many images as typically seen in paedophile cases.

Judge Reid told Territt: “What you did can only be described as serious grooming.

“You engaged in utterly inappropriate conversations about sexual matters designed for your own sexual gratification, culminating in inciting the child to masturbate and you receiving images of it.”

“The damage you wreaked by your behaviour will no doubt last many years if not forever.”

Judge Reid sentenced Territt to seven years’ imprisonment. Upon his release he will be the subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and will be on the Sex Offenders Register for life.