ALLEGED sex offences by a former headteacher have been questioned regarding the dates on which the offences were thought to have taken place, a court heard.

David Tuohy, 83, of Whitehouse Road, South Oxford, has been charged with 18 counts of indecent and serious sexual assaults, and four counts of a serious sexual offence, during the 1970s.

The trial at Norwich Crown Court has heard the charges relate to five different boys, all aged under 16, Tuohy has denied the offences, alleged to have happened at the school now known as the New Eccles Hall School, in Quidenham, Norfolk.

Andrew Shaw, prosecuting, said some of the allegations were specimen counts, meaning they were examples of repeated inappropriate conduct by Tuohy.

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John Reilley, representing Tuohy, told the court the dates when some victims claimed they were abused by Tuohy coincided with a time when he was not at the school.

Tuohy started at the school in 1970, but left to work at other schools, before returning as headmaster in September 1974.

Mr Reilley said: “Some of the victims claimed they were abused at the time where Mr Tuohy was not employed by the school, so therefore the incidents could not possibly have happened at that time they claim.

“Mr Tuohy is a man of previous good character who has no prior convictions.”

Mr Reilley also dismissed allegations that a child nearly walked in on Tuohy abusing one of the victims.

Tuohy taught at Eccles Hall, a boarding school for children who found life difficult in mainstream education.

Mr Shaw said: “All five witnesses gave strikingly similar evidence in that they were taken into Tuohy’s office, and all point to the evidence that he had a particular sexual fascination with bottoms of very young boys.

“The abuse happened 40 years ago, so it would be easy for the victims to get the dates confused.”

The trial continues.


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