Teaching assistant took indecent images of pupils

A teaching assistant who took indecent images of pupils and shared them with her partner has been jailed for seven years.

Pamela Martin, 44, took the pictures while working at a school in South Yorkshire and shared them with 41-year-old Christopher O'Kane, who has also been handed a seven-year jail term.

The couple, from Scunthorpe, pleaded guilty to a number of sex offences, including making an indecent image of a child and publishing an obscene article.

Both were given indefinite sexual harm prevention orders and told they must remain on the sex offenders register for life when they were sentenced at Grimsby Crown Court on Friday.

Humberside Police said the couple were caught after officers found O'Kane had sent messages online suggesting "a sexual interest in children".

He was arrested on 10 December 2025 and his devices were scanned, and that showed messages between him and Martin.

Officers found indecent images of children on Martin's devices, and she was arrested on 8 January.

Describing the pair as "perverted criminals", Det Con Helena Allison said: "Martin took advantage of her role in a school to create indecent images of children, at a time when her victims and their families trusted her, as a professional, to look after them.

"She then further abused this trust by sharing these images with O'Kane, engaging in vile conversation together."

She appealed for anyone "with any information or concerns about this type of offending to contact us".

The pair had admitted the charges at Grimsby Crown Court on 9 March.

Martin admitted two counts of making and one count of taking an indecent image of a child, publishing an obscene article, voyeurism, recording an image under clothing to observe another without consent, and theft.

O'Kane admitted three counts of making and one count of distributing an indecent image of a child, possession of an extreme pornographic image, and publishing an obscene article.

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