UNITED KINGDOM
Thisis Lancashire
A FORMER headmaster from Burnley, convicted of sexually abusing boys at a residential school in Yorkshire, has been jailed for 18 years.
Roy Leonard Allen, 72, is beginning the prison term after vulnerable youngsters at Thorp Arch Grange, near Wetherby, were targeted in the 70s and 80s.
Allen, now of Moseley Road, was convicted of nine charges of indecent assault, two serious sexual assaults and one attempted serious sexual assault after a trial at Leeds Crown Court. He was cleared of two further indecent assaults.
Prosecutors told jurors Allen was director of education and later headmaster at Thorp Arch, where there was a culture of bullying so young boys, many who had ended up there through court or care proceedings.
Roy Lovatt, 71, from Redcar, a housemaster at Thorp Grange, was convicted of four indecent assaults and five serious sexual assaults at the trial. He had confessed earlier to 23 indecent assault offences and two gross indecency charges.
He went on to become an ordained Catholic priest and was jailed for 28 years by Judge Neil Clark.
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