prep school teacher accused of child sex abuse over two decades

Pic:Peter Wells(wp)
Crime reporter(wp/es):

A former teacher at a £15,000-a-year prep school groped a pupil in a Second World War bunker during child sex abuse which stretched over two decades, a court heard.

Peter Wells, 72, is accused of abusing two pupils while teaching at Keble prep school in Winchmore Hill, north  London, and indecently assaulting a third boy when he was a Scout master in the Seventies.

It is alleged that Wells, a science and games teacher, regularly stripped off in front of pupils as they showered after sports sessions.

“The allegations relate to sexual abuse of three boys when Mr Wells was in a position of trust,” prosecutor Richard Merz told Wood Green crown court.

One boy claimed he was abused dozens of times by Wells over the course of eight years, during school trips and after athletics sessions.

“The defendant became something of a role model for him, taking on a fatherly role,” said Mr Merz. The boy claimed he was abused in the late Seventies and early Eighties, from the age of nine to 16, but Wells told him it was “their secret and he shouldn’t tell anyone about it”.

A second pupil claimed Wells abused him over four years, ordering him to always wear shorts rather than a tracksuit during sports sessions.

The alleged victim claims the teacher groped him during a school trip after talking to him about sex, and he told police about another incident on a visit to some Second World War bunkers.

“It started raining, the defendant took him into one of the bunkers, hugged him, and touched his private parts. [The boy] told him he was bad for doing that, and the defendant became angry,” Mr Merz said.

The third alleged victim claims he was abused in the Seventies by Wells, who was a leader of his Scout group. He told police he first complained in 2014 when one of the movement’s leaders claimed that child abuse in the Scouts was “rare”.

Questioned last year, Wells, who was a teacher at Keble school between 1976 and 1994, denied sexually abusing the boys. 

Wells, of Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, denies seven counts of indecent assault on a male, five charges of indecency with a child and one count of buggery. The trial continues.