A TEACHING assistant who had sex with an underage girl and kissed another when she got drunk was jailed for two years after a judge heard him described as “a significant risk”.

Probation officials fear that 27-year-old Nicholas Collier will pose a danger to girls until he recognises he has an attraction to them and does something to control it, a court heard.

He was also banned for life from working with children and having unsupervised contact with under-16s, and was ordered to sign on the sex offenders' register for the next ten years.

Teesside Crown Court heard how Collier's teaching career is in tatters and his conduct while working at the school, in the Teesside area, has shamed him and his family.

His barrister, Sarah Mallett, said: “The defendant is very sorry about what happened. He feels guilt and he feels remorse in relation to it. He entirely understands what he did was wrong.

“He is ashamed of his behaviour because he did know he should not get involved with anybody from his school. He has brought shame upon his loving and very supportive family.

“He knows he has to be punished. He has been punished quite significantly already. Of course, he lost his job, but he has also lost the career he intended to pursue. He loved teaching.”

The court heard how Collier, of Ingleby Close, Stockton, got the teaching assistant's job three years ago, and there was an internal investigation into his behaviour within months.

It later emerged that he had kissed one girl after being invited around to her home when she returned from a night out drunk. They had earlier swapped mobile phone numbers.

Collier had sex with another girl in the changing rooms of a leisure centre, in his car and at his home, prosecutor Ian Mullarkey told Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, yesterday.

Miss Mallett said Collier, who admitted four charges of sexual activity with a child while in a position of trust, “reasonably believed” the youngster he had sex with was aged over 16.

Judge Bourne-Arton told the defendant: “Some girls, before they reach what might be termed 'full maturity' and while they are growing up and seeing what life is about, can develop crushes and become impressionable.

“That is a well-recognised fact, recognised, I have no doubt, by you, and you took advantage of it. I am quite satisfied that you set out to befriend those two girls and groom them in the sense that you wished them to become more pliable to your wishes, and, I'm afraid, your desires.”

The court heard how a number of references from relatives, friends and new work colleagues – at a supermarket – painted the picture of “an otherwise perfectly decent young man”.