Former teacher jailed over sex offences

Retired John Mead (76), of Timbrills Avenue, claimed he was a victim of the Jimmy Savile effect after being convicted of assaulting the boys in dormitories and showers on trips he had arranged.

But Judge Christopher Cornwall, sentencing, dismissed Mead’s claims telling Preston Crown Court Mead’s victims complained about their former teacher several years before Savile’s offending was revealed.

Now, Mead, a former teacher at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School (QEGS), in Blackburn, who suffers from ill health and depression, will spend 18 months behind bars before he is eligible for release.

Judge Cornwall said: “This is a truly terrible case. Not just the fact that each boy at the time was young as he was under the age of 13. Not just the fact that each boy and his parents placed implicit trust in the school and the staff it employed to behave properly.

“It is the fact that each one of these felt he had no realistic alternative but to accept in uncompromising silence what you did to them and to accept the most terrible injustice.

“While your career progressed with distinction while each of their lives was without question, damaged.”

Mead had denied indecent assault but was convicted on four counts by a jury at Preston Crown Court.