A 72-year-old former teacher from Ipswich has been given his third jail term for downloading indecent images of children.

Michael Higgins was jailed for four years in 2005 for 17 offences of making and distributing indecent images of children and was jailed again in 2016 for 12 months for five offences of making indecent images of children, possessing a prohibited image of a child and two offences of possessing extreme pornography.

On Friday ( September 1) Higgins, of Raeburn Road, Ipswich, admitted six offences of making indecent images of children and breaching a sexual harm prevention order.

Recorder Graham Huston jailed him for 16 months and ordered that a sexual harm prevention order made in 2016 should continue.

He also ordered him to sign the sex offenders’ register.

The court heard that in February last year Higgins contacted a public protection officer who had been assigned to him as a result of his previous convictions and confessed to breaching the 2016 sexual harm prevention order by deleting his browsing history and viewing “ borderline” images.

He also admitted destroying devices that had indecent images on them.

Claire Hullock for Higgins said her client had confessed to breaching the terms of the sexual harm prevention order made in 2016.

He was released under investigation but in March this year, he was remanded in custody following an application by the prosecution.

Miss Hullock said Higgins had been a teacher all his life and was forced to leave the profession because of his convictions.

In 2005 when Higgins was jailed for four years Ipswich Crown Court heard that he had superimposed pupils’ faces on downloaded pornographic pictures.

The court was told Higgins, who was living in The Street, Wattisfield, had abused his position of trust as a teacher and unofficial photographer at Rosemary Musker High School, in Thetford, by making more than 15,000 indecent or pseudo images of 132 pupils between 1999 and January 2005.

Sentencing him on that occasion Judge John Devaux said: “You have a long-standing sexual attraction to children. This is a very serious breach of trust and some of these victims have been very badly affected by what they have learned.”

He said that acquiring and sorting the images had become an obsession, although it was confined to fantasy and never led to assault.