A special needs teacher has been jailed for taking explicit photos and videos of his vulnerable pupils.
David Bright, 30, took pictures of handicapped boys as young as six years old at his home while giving them respite care to give their parents a break.
In one example, he photographed a 10-year-old boy sitting on the toilet at his home.
In another, he pictured a boy of six and 10-year-old who suffered from autism using the toilets at the school in the London Borough of Havering.
When his home was searched police found 2,059 images of children on the teacher's computer, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.
Jailing Bright for three years, Judge David Radford told him: "You were employed as a special needs teacher and you also offered respite care to parents of handicapped children who are in need of special education.
"You did not create but you did download images from the internet and they reflect the quantity and type of images you thought it right to download and store on your computer for your sexual gratification.
"For someone in your occupation to be involved in offences of that kind, are particularly grave and you should have been well aware that those who commit these offences are helping the exploitation of vulnerable children in the world.
"Quite apart from that, paling into insignificance almost, you were charged with offences which involve you exploiting the position that you held as someone who was trusted as a special needs teacher and carer.
"You take care of vulnerable children who had such vulnerabilities making it difficult for them to resist. "Their parents trusted you completely as rightly as they could have expected to do.
"Particularly where respite care was concerned, you cynically took advantage of that, working in order to take photographs and in one case a video film of those children in a sexual context.
"Of course hopefully the children were too young to understand but you have done is cause a complete breakdown in the trust from parents. "That is a most grave breach of trust and cynical offending on your part."
Bright, of Hutton, Brentwood, admitted one count of sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust and 13 counts of making indecent photographs of a child.
Parents of the victims sobbed in the public gallery as Bright was led away.