Oxford educated headmaster was sadistic sex abuser

A FORMER boarding school headmaster was jailed for 21 years ­yesterday for his sadistic sex abuse campaign against pupils.

Derek Slade committed more than 50 offences against young children Derek Slade committed more than 50 offences against young children

Oxford-educated Derek Slade, 61, was convicted of more than 50 offences including assault, ­indecent assault and possessing child pornography.

Judge Peter Fenn recommended Slade serve at least 14 years and pay £30,000 towards prosecution costs.

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He said Slade’s 12 victims – some as young as eight at the time – had “lost days of childhood ­innocence” and seen their lives “seriously damaged”.

And he told him: “Their memories are of brutal violence at your hands in the ­context of corporal punishment and outside that context as well as memories of indecency committed by you.”

Several victims were in Ipswich Crown Court to hear him being sentenced. Some wept and one applauded as Slade was led away.

The court was told Slade used his ­position at St George’s School to beat boys and molest them between 1978 and 1983.

He forced some victims to wait on him and his adult male friends at “midnight feasts” before assaulting them.

Slade would select five boys at a time to present themselves in their best school uniform with shoes ­polished and hair brushed and washed. After the meal the men would choose a boy and take him away for sex.

One victim had attended five feasts and was ­chosen each time by Slade.

Slade also meted out “brutal” ­beatings, hitting boys with a slipper, a table tennis bat and his bare hand, and given “kickings” to those who upset him.

He was obsessed with “punishment” techniques and ordered pupils to write essays on “whackings I have had”, the court heard.

Slade avoided being found out for more than 30 years despite complaints about his behaviour and a BBC Radio 4 investigation into St George’s in 1982.

Slade, now of Burton-on-Trent, Staffs, set up the school for the ­children of servicemen and women in 1978. It was initially based in Wicklewood, Norfolk, but moved to Great ­Finborough, ­Suffolk, in 1980. Slade left the school in 1983.

Police were called in only when former pupils complained about Slade two years ago. Detectives found 4,486 child porn images on his computer and audio tapes that Slade had made of boys being beaten with descriptions in Greek of punishments he had administered.

After the hearing Slade’s ­victims said in a statement: “Derek Slade stole our childhoods. What should have been the happiest years of our lives were turned into the most ­fearful.”

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