A TRAINEE teacher from Tamworth who groomed a 15-year-old pupil online before luring her back to his house has been jailed for six months.

Paul Saunders had 'smutty exchanges' in late-night internet chats with the teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, after bumping into her in the school holidays and getting her mobile number.

Saunders, aged 25, – who now lives in Cowley, Lakeside, but at the time of the offence lived in Glascote Road – told the girl he loved to 'eye her up' while she did science tests, before inviting her to his house in November 2008.

The night before the pair met, he had even joked with her in one MSN internet chat: "I will probably see you in the night and rape you as you will be intoxicated."

The teacher, who had been training at two schools, near Tamworth, kissed and groped the topless teenager. She left when he tried to put his hand down her jeans.

Saunders, who admitted sexual activity with a girl under 16, was yesterday (Wednesday) jailed for six months and banned from being alone with children without their parents permission.

Warwick Crown Court heard Saunders 'showed the girl attention' before intimately chatting to her online about her then boyfriend, periods and other explicit topics.

The pair had met after a 'chance meeting' in August 2008, where Saunders got her details on the pretence of giving her advice on her exam results.

Sentencing Saunders Judge Richard Griffith-Jones, said: "You showed her attention which she was flattered by and responded to and was happy to engage in social and confidential exchanges which then gave rise to a temptation in your mind to take advantage.

"The reality is that you were engaging in something inappropriate which followed very shortly after you had been a teacher and was created by talk of exam results when you were a teacher."

He added: "This was intimate sexual contact you had with her.

"You were clearly sexually aroused and that sort of intimate contact with someone you have met because she is a pupil is so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified.

"Parents send there children to school every day and they have to know that the teachers of those children who they are often going to look up to have to have complete integrity in the relationship they have with those children."

The teenager, now aged 17, stayed silent for a year after the meeting with Saunders, before telling her mother of the incident.

Saunders was arrested in March this year and has since resigned from teaching at Polesworth High School, Staffs. The charge related to a pupil at a different school.

Darron Whitehead, defending, said: "The defendant has come to court knowing he has made a mistake and a substantial error of judgement. He knows he should have known better and his emotions should have been kept very distinct from his working life.

"He was a young man who would frequently go out at weekend and while he was a trainee school teacher, he hasn't yet grown up – he was still in that mode of thinking coming out of school and university.

"He will never again be trusted and never be looked at in the way he used to be before this offence happened."

Saunders, who sat emotionless as he was jailed, must also sign the Sex Offenders Register.