December 2020: Tonkiss was today jailed for 16 years for 35 offences of indecent assault between 1978 and 1985 against six victims. His barrister said that he accepted he was likely to die in jail.

November 2020

Former Plymouth teacher found guilty of abusing schoolboys

A former schoolteacher who denied sexually abusing boys aged between 12 and 15 more than 30 years ago has been found guilty by a jury.

Glynn Tonkiss – described by police as an “opportunistic paedophile” flatly denied 36 counts of indecent assaults on eight boys between 1975 and 1985 in Plymouth.

The former art teacher, from Palmerston Street, Stoke, was accused of performing indecent acts on the boys, performing oral sex on them and masturbating them.

The jury found him guilty of 35 counts relating to seven boys. They found him not guilty of one count of indecent assault in connection with an eighth boy.

Ms Recorder Jo Martin QC told Tonkiss, now aged 74, that his sentencing hearing would take place on November 30, but warned him that he should expect to face a sentence “of considerable years of imprisonment”.

The court had heard that police had interviewed Tonkiss a number of times as men came forward over a period of years, but it was the latest investigation which began in 2017 and was lead by Det Con Matthew Nile, that saw them trace a total of eight complainants.

Tonkiss was eventually charged with a number of offences in August 19, but the number of counts grew over the next few months as more victims came forward.

Many gave harrowing evidence in court about the abuse they suffered at Tonkiss’ hands, at their school and at his homes in King Street and Harwell Street.

Tonkiss said he was “mystified” by the allegations and said he was a heterosexual with absolutely no sexual interest in men or boys. However, he later claimed that he suffered two strokes in 2016 and that this had “affected my emotions” adding that they had made him “aware that I did have homosexual inclinations”.

He claimed that these tendencies had been “dormant” at the time the boys claimed he had sexually abused them and that the strokes had “brought it to the surface” and “triggered” his “homosexual tendencies”.

He said the school where many of the boys attended – which PlymouthLive is not naming to protect the victims’ identities – was “like a borstal”.

He explained that he had studied fine art at Bristol University before going on to study Latin, history and English literature as he “subconsciously” knew he was going to be a teacher.

He also took a post-graduate teaching course in Manchester before returning to Plymouth where he took up a post as an art teacher where he worked at a number of schools over the next few years.

He attempted to paint a picture whereby he was the victim of his accusers’ aggressive sexual overtures towards him, claiming that one of his victims was “mixed up” and possibly “bisexual”.

However, despite claiming in police interviews that he did not come to recognise his own “latent homosexuality” until 2016 and that he had led an entirely heterosexual past, he told his own barrister during his defence that he had performed oral sex on a boy – one of his accusers – in his home