April 2017

Two Eastbourne teachers jailed for child sex offences

Two men have been sent to prison after being convicted of sexual offences against a boy who was a pupil at an Eastbourne school where they were both teachers nearly 30 years ago.

The victim was a teenage pupil at Eastbourne College and the two men were teachers there.

Andrew Boxer, 67, retired, of Queen St, Eynsham, Oxfordshire, and Graham Jones, 63, retired, of Bedford Grove, Eastbourne, were sentenced at Hove Crown Court on Tuesday (April 11) after a seven-day trial.

Boxer was sentenced to a total of 15 years’ imprisonment on seven counts of indecent assault on the boy, six at an address in Eastbourne and one at an address in Cambridge during a visit there.

He was found not guilty of an eighth charge of indecent assault in Eastbourne.

Jones was sentenced to a total of two years’ imprisonment on two counts of indecent assault on the same boy, one on several occasions at an address in East Sussex and one at an address in Eastbourne.

Boxer will be a registered sex offender for life and was served with a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) to last indefinitely severely restricting his access to boys. Jones will be a registered sex offender for ten years and was also served with an SHPO severely restricting his access to boys, to last for ten years.

Boxer was history teacher and Jones was a music teacher at the time of the offending.

A police investigation started in August 2015 when the victim came forward for the first time, having not told anyone of these traumatic experiences for many years.

He had been befriended separately by Boxer and Jones when he entered the College and it is quite clear they both gained his trust before involving him in acts he then felt he could not report.

Boxer in particular systematically ‘groomed’ him, using the victim’s acceptance of, for example, seemingly casual remarks and apparently accidental access to video porn and his own sexual acts, to bring about a situation in which the boy felt trapped.