Nine year jail term for retired teacher guilty of Chichester child sex assaults
Piers Le Cheminant targeted boys at the Oakwood boarding school
Last updated 10th Jul 2023
A retired teacher has been jailed for nine years for sexually assaulting boys at Chichester's Oakwood boarding school and another school in Salisbury.
77 year old Piers Le Cheminant from Newton Abbot in Devon was convicted in April, of 10 indecent assaults against nine boys over a 21-year period.
He targeted boys at Oakwood, leaving after until one of the pupils made a complaint against him, Winchester Crown Court was told.
He then moved to the Salisbury Cathedral School and carried out further crimes.
Evidence given to the jury included that Le Cheminant would call boys to the front of the class and grope their buttocks while their classmates watched.
He would also watch the boys shower after they had played sport and took some of his victims somewhere private, where he would grope them and smack their buttocks.
Judge Timothy Mousley KC said the defendant had shown a 'lack of remorse' for his crimes, which happened between 1965 and 1986. He said:
"One of the children was only eight years old when you started to abuse him. Each of these boys was particularly vulnerable and you took advantage of that.
"The harm was severe in some cases and you breached the trust which others expected of you. You have left them with appalling memories of their time at school."
As well as being jailed for nine years, Le Cheminant has been given a lifelong sexual harm prevention order and ordered to sign the sex offenders' register.
Speaking when Le Cheminant was convicted, Gareth Morgan from the Crown Prosecution Service said:
“Many of the victims had strikingly similar recollections of what had happened to them, with some abused during class in front of other pupils, while others were subjected to abuse after swimming or playing sport.
“The defendant was a popular teacher, which put some of his victims off sharing what had happened to them, as they did not want to get him into trouble, but Le Cheminant used that popularity and significant position of trust to foster a closeness with pupils that he then often used to facilitate his offending.
“This abuse has taken a terrible toll on the lives of the victims. One even refused to attend a planned school reunion many years later because of his experience at the hands of the defendant. Now Le Cheminant has finally been brought to justice for his actions.
“This case very clearly demonstrates that no matter how long-ago sexual abuse was committed, time is not a barrier, and victims can see justice done even after many years have passed."