A primary school teacher has been jailed for a year for bombarding an 11-year-old girl with obscene mail and phone calls.

Clive Dechant, 28, from Ascot, Berkshire, was sentenced at Reading Crown Court and placed on the sex register for life.

He spied on the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, from his upstairs bedroom which overlooked her home in Ascot.

The parents of the girl thought the messages, which started innocently, were from an infatuated schoolboy, but they became more and more sinister as they went along.

Obscene calls

The family became particularly alarmed when he sent a message making reference to her "silky red pyjamas" - she wore a red nightie in bed.

In total Dechant made 10 calls and sent three obscene letters and a card to the girl.

Police put a trace on Dechant's phone and arrested him on 8 November last year.

Detectives found a box of Christmas cards identical to that sent to the girl, a note of her birthday and her phone number in his diary.

They also seized three printed out indecent pictures of children aged between eight and 13, including one showing a young girl performing a sex act with a man.

Dechant, a teacher for seven years, claimed he contacted the girl because of voices in his head.