Ex Kimbolton School teacher found guilty of sex offences against schoolgirls

Simon Ball, 42, a respected music teacher, was found guilty of four counts of engaging in sexual activity with two female students while in a position of trust, by a jury on Wednesday.

He was also yesterday (Nov 24) found guilty of one count of indecent assault after holding a 13-year-old’s hand under a blanket while on a school coach trip.

Ball abused the three schoolgirls aged between 13 and 16 during his time as a teacher at private boarding school Giggleswick, in Settle, North Yorks, between 2001 and 2004.

He is due to be sentenced on Tuesday after the jury failed to reach a verdict on one further count of sexual activity while in a position of trust and three counts of indecent assault.

Ball watched the jury from the dock and made no reaction as the verdicts were read out on Wednesday afternoon.

During the course of the nine-day trial the court heard how he had a threesome with two former Giggleswick students and had sex with one of them on his wife’s wedding dress.

Oxford university student Ball had began working at Giggleswick in 1999 as a newly qualified teacher before moving to Kimbolton School in 2004.

The jury was told how Ball previously pleaded guilty to five charges of sexual activity with a girl aged 13-17 while in a position of trust in May this year after a student at Kimbolton School made separate allegations about him.

He also previously admitted one count of making indecent photographs of a child and one count of possessing indecent photographs of a child relating to the relationship he had been having with the Kimbolton student.

Detective Constable Hayley Kendall of Cambridgeshire police from the Child Abuse Investigation and Safeguarding Unit said: “These were predatory offences committed against vulnerable, young people by a person in a position of trust, whose duty was supposed to be to protect and safeguard those in his care.

“This investigation could not have begun without the bravery of the first victim coming forwards and subsequently, the further victims who attended court to give evidence.

“No matter how long ago these crimes occur, they can have a devastating and long lasting effect on victims.

“I hope that this result offers them some form of closure and that today’s verdict will encourage others to report abuse, whether historical or current, to the police.”

Bespectacled Ball, of Newent, Gloucestershire, will be sentenced on Tuesday (Nov 29).