Teacher sexually abused four boys, court hears

A former boarding school teacher sexually abused four boys, a court has been told.

Derek Barker, 92, denies three charges of buggery, three charges of indecency with a child and two charges of indecent assault at Monkton Combe School in Bath when he taught there in the 1970s and 1980s.

Bristol Crown Court heard that one of the boys confided in the school's chaplain about the alleged abuse and was told it was a "wicked lie" and that "God would punish him one day".

Barker resigned from the school in the 1980s after another student took a photograph of him tied to his bed at his home in the nearby village of Limpley Stoke, in Wiltshire.

The jury heard that Barker pleasured himself while watching a schoolboy sexually abuse a younger pupil.

Ellen McAnaw, prosecuting, said the first complainant contacted police in 2022, telling officers he had been summoned to Barker's flat where another student abused him.

"[The complainant] said that he was terrified by what was going on and he could not believe what was happening, especially as there was a teacher there," McAnaw told the court.

"[He] said Derek Barker was sitting in a chair while masturbating, and he described it as like a private sex show for him."

The complainant told police similar things happened on other occasions, and said the alleged abuse had affected his education.

"Eventually, he told the chaplain what had happened to him. He would describe this as the biggest mistake of his whole life," McAnaw said.

"Instead of being offered support, the chaplain told him that God would punish him one day for telling a wicked lie about a nice boy and a nice teacher."

The court heard that after Barker was charged with offences against the first complainant, three others came forward alleging they had been touched by him.

"He described what the school was like at that time, his perception that teachers turned a blind eye to bullying or violence and a feeling that it was not a safe environment to speak out in," McAnaw said of the second complainant.

The court heard the first three charges related to Barker "aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring" the buggery of the first complainant by the older boy, who had died before the police launched an investigation.

The trial continues.

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