By Helen Carter
The Guardian
September 13, 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/sep/13/anglican-chaplain-admits-indecent-assault
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| Cape Town, where Leslie Carter was working when he targeted his first victim, a 12-year-old boy. Photograph: David Davies/Sportsphoto Ltd |
A former Anglican chaplain has been warned he faces a prison sentence after pleading guilty to a string of indecent assaults on young boys dating back 54 years.
It is thought to be one of the oldest cases of historic child sex abuse ever recorded in English courts.
Father Leslie Carter, 84, of Bath, Somerset, admitted nine indecent assaults on three boys aged between nine and 12 over a 20-year period between 1957 and 1977 while working at private schools in the UK and South Africa. He abused his position by targeting the children while he was alone with them in churches, scout huts and his home, Harrow crown court heard.
Carter 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.
Justin Bearman, prosecuting, told the court that Carter had returned to the UK in 1962 and had taken up a post of school chaplain at Quainton Hall in Harrow six years later. While school chaplain he had indecently assaulted two boys by putting his hand down their trousers and assaulting them.
"That behaviour would take place in a variety of different places around the school including his own living quarters, in the school grounds, scout hut, and the church," Bearman said.
Summing up the case against Carter, he said: "The defendant … used his position of respect, his position as an Anglican priest and a schoolteacher to breach that trust in the most devastating way possible towards these three young men over an extensive period of time."
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 trial.
A further 14 charges denied by Carter were left to lie on file.
Judge Graham White warned the former Anglican chaplain he was keeping "all options open" when he sentences him on 19 October after pre-sentence reports are prepared.
He said: "You pleaded guilty to what you know are very serious offences involving the sexual abuse of young boys who were in your charge. You abused your position of trust both as a priest and a teacher."
He added: "I have to tell you that all sentencing options remain open and that a sentence of imprisonment is the most likely outcome."
One victim was aged nine when the cleric first targeted him between 1974 and 1975 and the assaults continued for another year. Another victim was an 11-year-old boy who was assaulted between 1976 and 1977.
The allegations only emerged in 2004, when a victim in South Africa complained to police in the UK, the court was told.
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