A TEACHER who sexually abused pupils at his school has been jailed for 10 years.

Mark Christopher Blackie’s offending drove one girl to take an overdose and self harm, York Crown Court heard.

He had taken her alone into an area within the school and committed a serious sexual offence on her as well as attempting to rape her and other abuse, a York jury heard.

In her personal statement, she said: “When I close my eyes, I see him, hear him and smell him.

“I just want to get in the bath and scrub it away. My skin crawls.”

She was one of five girls that Blackie - who had ambitions to be head of a department - used for his sexual gratification at the school.

The Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, told Blackie: “Nobody knew that inside that good teacher there lurked a darker side, a physical liking for young adolescent girls and you indulged yourself.”

He said Blackie had used “emotional blackmail” to try and stop the first girl revealing what he had done to her and had “completely abandoned all decorum” when he had abused the first girl.

Two of the girls were vulnerable because of their emotional state when he had abused them.

Some of the girls Blackie abused were in court to hear the judge describe all five as “intelligent, bright young girls” who were “brave” and had given compelling evidence against him.

“They knew right from wrong,” the judge told Blackie. “Unlike you.”

Blackie showed no reaction as he was jailed for 10 years, barred from teaching or working with children again, put on the sex offenders' register for life and made subject to a sexual harm prevention order for 10 years.

He broke down in the dock last week as the jury convicted him of attempted rape, a serious sexual assault, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and seven charges of sexual assault at the end of an 11-day trial.

The 32-year-old, from Park Lane, East Lutton, near Malton, had denied all charges.

The Press was unable to report the trial at the time because the jury was unaware of further sexual allegations made against him by another girl many years earlier.

After his conviction, the prosecution asked for those charges to lie on file which means they will be on his criminal record but not as convictions.

Robin Frieze, for Blackie, said there was little he could say in mitigation.

“It is obviously completely his own fault he has thrown away the career that he had,” he said The judge commended Det Con Beverley Garbutt, of North Yorkshire Police, for her “excellent police work” in building the case against Blackie.