A DEPUTY headteacher who encouraged a man to rape a three-year-old girl, while he watched on a web camera, was put behind bars.

Patrick Lennon, 59, was a regarded as a “pillar of the community” at Greenbank all-girls High School, Southport, where he had worked since the 1970s.

But, in the “murkiest recesses” of his life, Lennon had developed a sickening friendship with two other paedophiles, Joseph Hawley, 38, and Phillip Skitt, 54.

In November, 2008, the married teacher and Skitt sent horrifying chatroom messages to Hawley, urging him to carry out obscene acts of abuse on the young girl. The depraved pair then watched on web-cams as Hawley sexually assaulted and molested the girl.

Lennon was yesterday put behind bars for seven years and given an extended licence for three years, while Hawley was locked up indefinitely and Skitt, of Orrell Road, Wigan, was jailed for eight years with a three-year ended licence.

Jailing them, Judge Mark Brown said: “Any right-thinking person would consider the circumstances of this case as very shocking and your actions wicked.”

He added: “It is clear in my judgment that all three of you gained a great deal of sexual gratification by the offences. This type of appalling abuse cannot be tolerated and must be condemned in the very strongest terms.”