A Suffolk primary school teacher accused of having online chats about sex with adult decoys pretending to be schoolgirls has told a court he was horrified when vigilante paedophile hunters turned up at his front door.

Giving evidence during his trial at Ipswich Crown Court, Richard Cook said he had no idea what was going on when they arrived at his Ipswich home.

“They said the police were on their way and I could see they were live-streaming it. I just tried to keep as calm as I could until the police arrived,” said Cook.

“I didn’t know what they were talking about,” he added.

Asked by his barrister Juliet Donovan what he felt when the vigilante group turned up at his home he replied: “horror”.

During his evidence on Monday (September 16) Cook denied loading a Kik Messenger app on his phone and having sexual chats and sending sexually explicit pictures to adult decoys and an undercover police officer posing as children.

The 48-year-old claimed his partner had wanted him out of her life and he believed she had installed the Kik messenger account to get him into trouble although she denied this when she gave evidence last week.

Cook, formerly of Ipswich but now of Lambert Lane, East Cowes, has denied attempting to cause a child to watch a sexual act, three offences of attempting to cause a child to engage in sexual activity and an offence of arranging or facilitating a sex act he intended to do, namely engaging in penetrative sexual activity with a girl under 16.

All the offences relate to conversations he allegedly had with adult decoys posing as three girls aged between nine and 14.

The offences are alleged to have been committed in July 2019.

Cook has also denied three offences of making indecent images of children on or before July 29 2019.

The charges allege that he made one indecent image and five videos in the most serious level A category, three images and 10 videos in category B and 19 images and five videos in the least serious level C category.

Cook allegedly told an undercover police officer who was pretending to be a 13-year-old girl that he wanted them to be boyfriend and girlfriend and arranged to meet her at the entrance of Christchurch Park.

However, the meeting didn’t happen as members of a paedophile hunter group had already intervened and confronted Cook at his home.

This arose out of Cook’s alleged conversations with a member of an online paedophile hunter group posing as a nine-year-old girl. 

Members of the group traced Cook to an address in the Nacton Road area of Ipswich and confronted him there.

The group alerted the police about what they were doing and Cook was arrested.

Officers seized his phone and when it was examined they found 40 indecent images and videos of children on it, said Miss May.

The court heard that following his arrest Cook categorically denied sending the messages to the decoys posing as children and said his phone had been hacked.

He denied downloading the indecent images and videos of children found on his phone and said his interest in children “started and stopped with teaching them”.

The trial continues.