A DISGRACED teacher who was jailed for grooming a pupil at St Gregory’s Catholic High School has failed in a High Court bid to cut his sentence.

Gary Caldwell, who worked as a science teacher at the Old Hall school for more than 20 years, was jailed for 21 months earlier this year for grooming the 16-year-old and encouraging her to engage in sexual acts in his classroom in the early 2000s.

The 52-year-old argued that his jail term was too harsh and took his case to the Court of Appeal in London.

But today the High Court rejected any cut in the sentencing for Caldwell’s ‘cynical’ crimes.

His victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, would go into Caldwell’s classroom alone or with a friend and ‘shocked her with overtly sexual conversations’.

The dad-of-two, of Whitbarrow Road, Lymm, would ask her about her boyfriend and told her that ‘the best thing she could do for a lad was to perform oral sex’.

Caldwell began to exchange texts with the girl and sent her a letter referring to his ‘lustful feelings for her’.

He also suggested that she watch pornographic films and told her that she reminded him of someone he has seen in such a film.

The disgraced teacher also set ‘challenges’ for her, including getting her to wear a type of high-heeled shoe to school in order to satisfy a ‘particular sexual fetish’ he had.

Caldwell also encouraged her to touch his penis in his classroom and repeatedly told her not to tell anyone because ‘she would be the one who would get into trouble’.

The pair went on to have a full sexual relationship after she left the Cromwell Avenue school but after she ended it Caldwell would attempt to follow her bus to college and would turn up at her house.

In April, a jury found Caldwell guilty of six counts of abusing a position of trust and he was jailed the following month at Chester Crown Court.

At the Court of Appeal, Justice Robin Spencer agreed that Caldwell had been a ‘stalwart of the local community’ but that his crimes were ‘grave offences’ following a ‘period of very cynical sexual grooming’.

He added that crown court judge Recorder Simon Mills’ approach ‘could not be faulted’.

Justice Spencer said: “The public interest here required that conduct of this kind be marked with a sentence of appropriate severity – we are satisfied this sentence was entirely justified.”