Renowned harpist accused of schoolboy sex assaults
AFEMALE harpist took the virginity of a schoolboy who was a pupil at the school where her then-boyfriend was a substitute teacher, a trial has heard.
World-renowned harpist Danielle Perrett, who has played for the Queen and several prime ministers, is on trial alongside her former partner, accused of sexually abusing the boy in the 1980s, when the alleged victim was in his early teens. They deny all the charges. The alleged victim, now an adult, told Ipswich Crown Court that he was introduced to Perrett, now aged 59, by Richard Barton-Wood, who had been working as a substitute teacher at his school. He said Barton-Wood, who was in a relationship with Perrett at the time and is now 68, had taken him to a harp recital where Perrett was performing. After the recital, the three of them went back to Perrett’s flat, the alleged victim said, and he went to Perrett’s bed to go to sleep.
“I wasn’t asleep, I was lying there trying to get off to sleep when Danielle came into the room,” he said.
He said she got undressed and got into bed beside him. He said she “cuddled” him and had sex with him, and that Barton-Wood was not in the room at the time.
Prosecutor William Carter asked him: “What reactions can you remember about this happening?”
The alleged victim said: “Brilliant, absolutely brilliant, nothing like this ever happened to me.”
He told the court he had felt “in love with her, I felt safe with her”.
He said that after the sex he was “drifting off to sleep” when BartonWood, who was naked, got into the bed with them and indecently assaulted him, which he “absolutely hated”.
Mr Carter asked if all three of them had been naked at the time, to which the alleged victim replied: “Yes.”
The alleged victim gave his evidence last week but it could not be reported until now for legal reasons.
Perrett, of Bridge Street, Alpheton, Suffolk, denies eight counts of indecently assaulting a boy.
Barton-Wood, of Church Street, Wymondham, Norfolk, denies six counts of indecently assaulting a boy, one count of attempting to indecently assault a boy and one count of attempting to commit buggery.
The trial continues.