Ex-teacher ‘found guilty of sex assaults’
AFORMER teacher has been found guilty of 17 indecent assaults on girls while working at a primary school.
Grahame Brennand, 71, who was a deputy headteacher at Baxenden St John’s at the time of the offences, was convicted of the crimes after a trial in January but legal reasons meant the jury’s verdicts could not be reported until now.
This week a judge at Preston Crown Court lifted reporting restrictions as Brennand went on trial accused of a string of other offences.
At the first trial the jury failed to reach verdicts on the counts that Brennand currently faces.
Brennand faces a further 26 charges of indecent assault on girls under the ages of 13 in the 1970s and 1980s and three counts of physical cruelty on two boys during the same period.
He denies all the charges.
A jury of six men and six women heard prosecuting barrister Robert Golinski say Brennand had began teaching there in 1969, living close to the school.
He said the conduct of Brennand was ‘almost blatant but went unchallenged at the time’ and involved the inappropriate touching of girls.
Mr Golinski said he was known as a ‘strict disciplinarian and a domineering figure’.
Mr Golinski told the jury about the previous trial and said the guilty verdicts showed Brennand had a ‘proven sexual interest in young girls which he has acted on’.
He added that the cruelty allegations on the boys involved hurling one across a classroom and slapping and punching his face.
A second boy was locked in a storeroom cupboard as a punishment, the prosecution claim.
Defending, Sharon Watson told the jury that Brennand denied all the charges.
He told the jury Brennand believes that he was wrongly convicted of the indecent assaults and that all the allegations against him had been fabricated.
She said: “He asserts that he had nothing other than normal and lawful contact with all his pupils.”
Brennand has been was remanded in custody at the end of the previous trial pending the outcome of the re-trial.
The trial is expected to last around four weeks.