January 2005

Ex-teacher jailed for sex attacks

A former history teacher has been jailed for four years for indecently assaulting three pupils in the 1980s.

Richard Small, 57, from Wolverhampton, carried out five sex attacks on teenage boys at Dr Challoner’s Grammar School for Boys in Amersham, Buckinghamshire.

The incidents happened between 1982 and 1984, Reading Crown Court heard.

Judge Stanley Spence banned Small from working with children and also ordered him to sign the sex offenders’ register for life.

‘Lasting effect’

He told Small the acts were “total and utter breaches of your position of trust as a teacher”.

One of Small’s victims, Edward Short, who is now 36, agreed to waive his right to anonymity to speak of his satisfaction at the length of the sentence.

Mr Short, of Croyde, Devon, said: “I can start living my life now, it’s been hanging over me for 20 years.

“The judge was spot on. I don’t think the people who commit these crimes have any idea of how lasting the effect is.

“Even when my wife was pregnant I wanted a daughter because of these events.”

Pupils ‘flattered’

Mr Short is now married and has two daughters but is still on antidepressants, the court was told.

Prosecutor Neil Moore told the court that Small was prone to using physical violence in the classroom.

“The evidence is that he was a good teacher but also a strict one and often used physical force to reinforce his authority,” he said.

“His method of operation was to use his status… to make advances towards the boys at the school and then moving on to sexually abusing them.”

The pupils often felt flattered by the attention and believed they were treated less harshly in the classroom as a result, Mr Moore told the court.