Bristol Public School Teacher Jailed for Ten Years for Sexually Molesting Pupils

Bristol Post
February 5, 2015

http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Bristol-public-school-teacher-jailed-years/story-25980542-detail/story.html

A Catholic public school master from Bristol who molested ten boys, including a chorister picked to sing at his wedding, was jailed for ten years today.

David Lowe, of Charlotte Street South, near Brandon Hill, put pupils through years of sexual abuse while teaching at two of the country's most prestigious boarding schools.

The 61-year-old sexually assaulted six boys at Westminster Cathedral Choir School and four at Ampleforth College - the leading Catholic school in North Yorkshire - between 1978 and 1984.

Married Lowe crept around boys' dormitories at night fondling and spanking them as they drifted off to sleep in their bunk beds.

The father-of-five also carried out attacks during piano lessons and even in a sick bay.

Many of his victims looked on from the public gallery as their former teacher was jailed for ten years in what one dubbed ‘the worst school reunion ever’.

Judge Martin Beddoe told Lowe: “I cannot ignore that these offences took place in two separate institutions whose reputations may even now be sullied by these revelations and that they took place over a significant period of time.

“Some of the boys were as young as eight or nine and many between ten and 11. All of them were entrusted to your care as a member of staff at each school. That trust was seriously betrayed by what you did.

“Your responsibility was to protect their welfare, not to damage it.”

Judge Beddoe said all of the boys were vulnerable, adding: “You took advantage of that and made it all worse by what you did.”

Lowe smiled and waved at his wife as he was taken down.

One victim, a former pupil at Westminster Cathedral Choir School, told police he was among “a select group of boys” asked to sing at Lowe's wedding in 1981.

Later that year, he said he was sexually assaulted in Lowe’s car after he was invited to visit him in Yorkshire.

A former Ampleforth student said Lowe had a 'mad-scientist look' and subjected him to 'painful' and 'bizarre' abuse during music lessons.

Lowe denied a string of sex attacks and was supported by his wife, Ursula, throughout the trial, but he visibly crumpled last month when a jury of seven women and five men found him guilty of all 15 indecent assaults.

During the trial prosecutor Philip Bennetts, QC, said: “David Lowe had a small group of pupils that he was extra-friendly with. He would leave sweets in his locker and notes, ‘You're very special, you deserve this, enjoy’.

Giving evidence a former Ampleforth pupil said he was just ten when he was attacked during private piano lessons in the early 1980s.

He said: “The bit that I remember, because it was most disturbing, was that he was pressing really quite hard, to the extent it was quite painful, in my crotch area with his hand in a sort of cup-position. He was poking around in my crotch area - over clothes.

“It was painful, it was bizarre and it was inappropriate.”

A former Westminster pupil described his tutor resting his hands on his tummy and instructing him to “sing using your diaphragm”.

The Cambridge-graduate then felt the boy’s bottom on several occasions during one-on-one music lessons.

The victim said he was around ten years old when their ‘disturbing’ interactions begun and described the it as ‘unequivocally sexual abuse’.

The pupil, now in his 40s, said Lowe knew the attacks were ‘not in the school curriculum’ at the elite Catholic prep school.

The witness said he once begged a classmate to stay behind at the end of the lesson, because he ‘didn’t want to be alone with this chap David Lowe.

He pleaded with a friend “Stay behind with me mate, won't you?” to try and avoid Lowe in the school library.

He added he had been molested by Lowe 'possibly a dozen times in all' but said he was 'not going to screw me over again' and finally reported the abuse to police after years of silence.

Lowe insisted he had no sexual interest in children and claimed the only physical contact he had with boys was when he tried to help them relax.

Westminster Cathedral Choir School is based in Victoria, while Ampleforth College, near York, is famous for being run by Benedictine monks.

Lowe, of Charlotte Street South, Bristol, was convicted of 15 indecent assaults on boys under 14.