A FORMER York schoolboy and university graduate has committed suicide after being accused of involvement in an international child pornography ring.

Richard Dyde, 47, died a day after being released on bail in Canada.

He had been facing charges of making, possessing, and making available child pornography.

He was one of 57 men worldwide arrested as part of Project Sanctuary, a year-long investigation into a global child pornography network.

Mr Dyde is thought to have grown up in Acomb, York, and was a pupil at Nunthorpe Grammar School in the 1970s.

Darrell Buttery, one of Mr Dyde’s former teachers and the president of York Civic Trust, said he had stayed in touch with Mr Dyde since he left school, and said he was shocked by the news.

“It’s desperately sad news,” he said.

“He was a hugely talented pupil who was outstanding in his year.”

“He was an immensely popular boy, and had a great sense of fun.

“He was such a lovely guy. There was absolutely never any indication of any of this.

“I last saw him when he came over last year, following the publication of his book about George Cayley (the Victorian aeronautical engineer known as the father of aviation).”

According to his entry on the Friends Reunited website, Mr Dyde went to Carr County Junior School before going on to Nunthorpe. He later studied for a degree in psychology at the University of York in the 1990s before emigrating to Canada, where he worked at Toronto’s York University, and is said to have held a PhD in cognitive neuroscience.

A colleague in Canada is reported to have said Mr Dyde could not live with the news of his charges being made public, which would probably have been too much for him to bear.

Toronto Police Service said 25 children had been rescued across the world as a result of Project Sanctuary – three in Europe, ten in the USA and 12 in Canada. Of the 57 men arrested, six are in Europe.

A spokesman said undercover officers had spent a year infiltrating a worldwide network of men who were allegedly trading child sexual abuse images and videos and, in some cases, creating such images by allegedly abusing children.

“This operation is an excellent example of what can be accomplished through co-operative police work between the US and Canada,” he said.

Mr Dyde served at one time in the RAF and came from a family of aviators, with his brother and father also serving in the air force.

Mr Dyde’s biography about Cayley, published under the nom de plume Richard Dee, is said to have established the aviator’s place in history as one of the first fathers of flight and challenged the popular belief that the Wright brothers invented the airplane.

Mr Dyde is reported to have been conducting research in Canada as part of a team designing experiments to explore the impact of zero gravity on astronauts in space.