Paedophile teacher jailed

Soutar was convicted of sexual abuse

A former primary school teacher who sexually abused young girls has been jailed for four-and-a-half years.

Robert Soutar, 54, committed the attacks at Dovelands Primary School in Leicester where he had been a teacher for many years.

Nottingham Crown Court heard how Soutar exploited a schoolgirl's crush on him to carry out a series of sex attacks on one of his victims.

The witness, now a 41-year-old married mother-of-two, kept her ordeal secret for nearly 30 years.

Escaped detection

The court was told that the victim, who was 11 years old at the time, considered Soutar "good-looking" and would often hold his hand at school.

"I feel bitter because he has ruined my life and angry because he was allowed to get away with it for so long," she said.

There appears to have been a lack of knowledge about how abusers operate

Official report

Soutar's sentence will be added to the three years' imprisonment he was given at Leicester Crown Court in June 2001.

At that hearing he admitted indecently assaulting 15 other pupils between 1965 and his suspension and dismissal in 2000.

Leicester City and Leicestershire County Councils launched an inquiry in 2001 into how he managed to escape detection for 35 years.

A report into Soutar's conduct concluded: "There was a failure to connect individual events and detect the overall pattern of incidents.

"There appears to have been a lack of knowledge about how abusers operate and a lack of clarity about what is appropriate behaviour."

Soutar was convicted of two charges of indecent assault, two of indecency with a child and two offences of a serious sexual nature.