Parents have been contacted over concerns about their children’s involvement in a school art project.

A review is being carried out into the art project at St Mary’s Roman Catholic Primary School in Douglas that was suspended in August 2017.

The project was led by freelance photographer Brian Mitchell, who was convicted last year of possessing indecent photographs of children - offences that had no connection with the school.

A review has been launched by the Department of Education, Sport and Culture and the Department for Health and Social Care, which want to find out if parents raised any concerns about their children at the time of the art project, or about their behaviour since.

A letter has been sent to parents of children at St Mary’s by Sue Mowle, director of inclusion and safeguarding at the DESC. It reads: ’The children and families division of the DHSC along with the DESC are currently working together to carry out a review of an art project that took place at St Mary’s RC Primary School in the academic year September 2016 and July 2017.

’The art project was led by a Mr Brian Mitchell, who has since been convicted of a serious offence that is not linked to St Mary’s RC Primary School.

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’We are writing to you to give you the opportunity to make contact with the DESC if you documented or raised any concerns about your children at the time of the art project or if your children’s presentation or behaviour has caused you any concerns since, which you believe could be linked to their involvement in the project.’

The DESC says it has no evidence to suggest any children were adversely affected by their involvement with the project or Mr Mitchell.

But the letter continues: ’We do, however, wish to ensure that the matter is investigated properly to enable us to provide reassurance to any families that may be concerned. To that end, we would appreciate hearing from you if you have any concerns to report.

’Mr Mitchell should not have any reason to contact your family subsequent to the cessation of the art project, but if he has done so, for whatever reason, we would like to know about that too.’

In March last year Brian Mitchell, aged 63, of Woodbourne Road, Douglas, was sentenced to 12 weeks’ custody, suspended for two years, and also put on the sex offenders’ register for five years.

He admitted taking naked photographs of a two-year-old girl and downloading images of teenage boys, with one image exposing the boy’s genitalia.

In total he admitted possessing nine images.

The images were rated at the lowest level of the Copine scale. Mr Mitchell told the court that he had never taken or possessed images for sexual gratification.

The photos of the girl were taken more than 20 years ago and the images of boys were downloaded about four years ago, and the defendant claimed he had taken them for an art project but then deemed them not right for it.

Mr Mitchell had formerly worked as a youth worker with the DESC.

He had not exploited his position with the department and none of the charges related to his time there.

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Parents who have any concerns about their child in connection with Mr Mitchell’s work in St Mary’s RC Primary School or the art project itself are asked to email [email protected]

A government spokesman said the letters had been sent out to parents of the one school, St Mary’s, where Mr Mitchell had worked for a short time on a project there.

She said: ’There has been a lengthy internal investigation and this is the conclusion of that under social care regulations.’