A former geography teacher at a private prep school who sexually abused a string of pupils he lured into his storage cupboard has been jailed for more than five years.
Richard Gaines, 74, promised informal sex education lessons and a look at his pornography collection to boys who joined him in the cupboard at St Martin’s School in Northwood, north-west London.
He told the boarding school pupils to come to his classroom in the evenings or at weekends, when he produced magazines of naked women and erotic playing cards.
The court heard Gaines, who was in his early thirties when the offences took place, sometimes had more than one boy in the cupboard at a time, and urged them to strip off and perform sex acts while he also exposed himself.
Gaines, who went on to become a Christian lay minister and NHS volunteer, admitted the sexual abuse of six boys over five years in the Seventies, pleading guilty to seven charges of gross indecency with a boy.
Judge Edward Connell, sitting at Isleworth crown court, sentenced Gaines on Wednesday to five years and two months in prison.
