Bath Chronicle
September 13, 2011
http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/priest-faces-jail-sex-assaults/story-13321424-detail/story.html
A former school chaplain from Bath who carried out a string of ‘disgraceful’ sex assaults on three young pupils dating back to the 1950s is facing jail today.
Father Leslie Carter, 84, preyed on his victims, aged between nine and 12, over a period of 20 years while working at private schools in the UK and South Africa.
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The Anglican priest ‘abused his position’ by targeting the boys while he was alone with them in churches, Scout huts and his own home, Harrow Crown Court heard.
Carter, who had been living in a flat in Bathwick Street until recently, targeted his first victim, aged 12, while working for St George’s School in Cape Town, South Africa.
He indecently assaulted him while taking a group of students on a boat trip to the UK in December 1957.
Carter returned to the UK in 1962 and took up a job as chaplain at Quainton Hall school in Harrow, in London, said Justin Bearman, prosecuting.
“It was there that he continued preying on young boys,” he told the court.
“The counts that he has pleaded guilty to relate to similar sexual abuse – engineering situations when he was alone with them.
“That abuse took place in variety of different places, including his own quarters, Scout huts and the church in the school grounds.”
One victim was aged just nine when the priest first targeted him between 1974 and 1975 and the assaults continued for another year.
The other boy was an 11-year-old who was assaulted between 1976 and 1977.
The allegations only came to light in 2004, when his South African victim complained to police in the UK, the court was told.
“This defendant preyed on young men, abused his position as a priest and school teacher and breached that trust in the most devastating way possible towards these three young men over an extensive period of time,” said Mr Bearman.
Carter had previously denied 21 counts of indecent assault and two counts of rape, but entered guilty pleas to nine of the indecency charges after a jury had been sworn in for a trial.
Judge Graham White adjourned the case to allow a pre-sentence report to be prepared and warned the priest that a jail term was ‘the most likely outcome’.
“You pleaded guilty to what you well know are serious offences, involving the sexual abuse of young boys who were in your charge,” he told him.
“You abused your position of trust as a priest and as a teacher.”
Carter was bailed on the condition he live and sleep at an address in Warminster, and cooperates with the probation service.
He will be sentenced on October 19 and the judge ordered that the remaining 14 charges lie on the court file.
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