Ex-teacher jailed for indecent assaults

The former teacher was jailed at Maidstone Crown Court

A former boarding school teacher has been jailed for six years for indecently assaulting four boys in his care two decades ago.

David Dean, from the Isle of Wight, was found guilty of eight counts of indecent assault on 10-year-old boys at a school in Canterbury, Kent.

The sentence also took into account two more indecent assaults on two other boys he admitted abusing at the Vernon Holme School.

The offences took place at the prep school between 1978 and 1983.

Maidstone Crown Court heard Dean, 59, had committed offences ranging from forcing one boy to perform oral sex and abusing another boy after enticing him back to his chalet in the school grounds.

You systematically abused him and the emotional and psychological damage that he has suffered was plain for all to see Judge Anthony Webb

Dean had originally pleaded guilty during a hearing in March to offences involving one of the boys, only to then deny them in an angry tirade in front of the victim, now in his 30s.

He was convicted because of his original guilty plea but when he appeared for sentencing, later in March, he applied to withdraw the plea, meaning a trial had to go ahead.

Having now been found guilty he was jailed for six years and ordered by Judge Anthony Webb to pay £12,000 towards the defence's costs, which the judge said were high because of the amount of time the case had eventually taken.

Referring to the victim Dean had verbally attacked in court in March, Judge Webb said: "You targeted him from a young age.

"You systematically abused him and the emotional and psychological damage that he has suffered was plain for all to see.

"You have ruined his life and he cannot form any satisfactory sexual relationships and he is haunted by the memory of you and your activities."

Dean was given sentences ranging from 12 months to six years, to run concurrently, for 10 separate counts of indecent assault on four boys under the age of 12.