A TEACHER who worked at a West Dorset school has been jailed for six years for blackmailing teenage girls and demanding sexual images from them.

Zahid Akram, 37, used false identities and targeted the victims aged between 13 and 18 he befriended on social networking sites.

None of the offences had any connection with Woodroffe School in Lyme Regis where he previously worked.

Akram, of Redditch and formerly of Exeter, previously admitted four charges of blackmail and one of causing or inciting a child to prostitution or pornography.

The court heard Akram, a married father of two, pretended to be a young man and persuaded his victims to send him photos of themselves in their underwear – but then said he knew who their parents were and where they lived. He threatened to rape two of them as he demanded more sexualised pictures of themselves.

Defence barrister Lawrence Wilcox said Akram became attracted by the prospect of ‘control and escapism’.

Akram was placed on the Sex Offenders’ register and banned from working with children.