A FORMER boarding school headmaster who abused boys in his care is today beginning a 21- year prison sentence.
Derek Slade, 61, was convicted by a jury at Ipswich Crown Court of 13 separate offences. The court heard that he had pleaded guilty to a further 21.
During the trial it was not revealed to the jury that Slade, of Farm Road, Burton, had also pleaded guilty to 16 charges of making indecent images of children and possessing 4,486 indecent images of children and a false passport.
It has emerged that Slade stole the identity of a dead child to obtain the false passport which he then used for overseas travel and to purchase his end-of-terrace house in Burton.
After Judge Peter Fenn passed sentence, spontaneous applause broke out in the public gallery.
Police then went to the Farm Road address where the keys gave access and a search of the property revealed one of the three bedrooms to contain a desk, four filing cabinets and a two sets of shelves.
In a black box file were found graphic stories written by Slade about child abuse. Police also found hand-drawn illustrations. Also found were tape recordings of what are believed to be Slade beating boys.
Nearly 70,000 images of children were discovered on Slade’s home computer, nearly 4,500 of them indecent.
Slade had obtained the false passport after reading the Frederick Forsyth novel ‘The Day of the Jackal’, visiting a cemetery and noting the details of Edward Marsh who was born in the same year as Slade but who had died aged eight in 1955.
That passport was used to help purchase his home in Burton on Trent which was registered in the name of Edward Marsh.
Judge Peter Fenn said: “Many of those boys as they were then went on to become men whose lives were seriously damaged.
Former pupils told of being violently beaten and kicked by Slade and then sexually abused.
One former pupil who had been aged nine at the time said it was just 72 hours after arriving at the school that he was singled out for Slade’s attentions.
The sexual abuse included taking selected pupils to “midnight feasts” at which a number of men would be present and who would have the pick of the boys, the court heard.
Giving evidence, Slade admitted that he was a paedophile and that some of the corporal punishment he inflicted may have been excessive. He denied having carried out any serious sexual assaults on boys in his care.
Following a five-week trial a jury of 10 women and two men convicted Slade of three offences of buggery, four of indecent assault on a male and six of assault causing actual bodily harm between September 1978 and August 1984.
He was found not guilty of one offence of a serious sexual offence and one of sexual assault. Slade had pleaded guilty to 15 offences of indecent assault and four of assault causing actual bodily harm.
Suffolk Police have confirmed that the investigation into allegations of abuse at St George’s School is still continuing.
