Updated: Fri May. 26 2006 7:17:21 PM

CTV.ca News Staff

A former Toronto high school teacher who pleaded guilty to child pornography related charges and having sex with juveniles was sentenced to house arrest on Friday.

After entering his guilty plea, Leslie Hoogland, 54, said he regretted his actions.

"I am determined to make necessary changes to lead a truly fulfilling life," the Toronto Star reported Hoogland said.

Hoogland had been a teacher in Halton Region and Toronto for 30 years. He was fired from his job at West Toronto Collegiate after his May 2004 arrest, although no students were victimized.

During the trial the court heard how he purchased sex from two 14-year-old boys who reportedly were male prostitutes. Hoogland took lewd photos of the boys and made scrapbooks and collages as keepsakes of his meetings with them. The incidents happened over a period of about four years.

Prosecutor Hugh Craig asked the court for a jail sentence of 15 to 18 months. He rejected the argument presented in court that the boys were paid and therefore willing participants.

"Mr. Hoogland presumably would know what difficulties youth are going through at that period of their lives," Craig said after sentencing on Friday. "To do what he did is frankly despicable."

Defence counsel Jennifer Myers argued that any sentence should be served in the community. She pointed to the fact that Hoogland has no prior convictions. Myers also said her client had a weak heart and that jail would kill him.

Justice Faye McWatt sentenced Hoogland to confinement in his Mississauga home.

He is allowed to take a daily walk, go shopping on weekends, and go to his job at a beer store for the first year of his sentence. He must stay home at night and keep away from children.

In the second year of Hoogland's sentence, the judge imposed an overnight curfew.

With a report from CTV's John Lancaster