Matron ‘paid boy, 11, for sex in Mars bars’
A PREP school matron hopped into an 11-year-old boy’s bed for sex after “lights out” and paid him in Mars bars, a court was told.
Tiffany Carter, 46, was a trainee at the time and the boy also went to her room for sex, it was alleged.
His mother only learned about the abuse when she received a tearful call from the boy worried he had caught AIDS, Lewes Crown Court heard.
The boy claimed the encounters were between September 1986 and April 1987 at St Andrew’s Prep School in Eastbourne, East Sussex – where boarders pay £22,000 a year.
Carter was 17 at the time and working as a junior matron.
Pia Abbott, wife of a former house master, said: “The boy’s mother called me and said he’s been having sex with a junior matron, she’s paying him in Mars bars and ‘I want it to stop’.
“I said to him ‘I’ve got your mum on the phone’ and he burst into tears. He said ‘after lights out I’ve been visiting the junior matron... we’ve been having sexual intercourse’.”
The boy’s mother claimed she was pressured by the school, which educates children aged three to 13, into not going to the police. She said: “The Sex claim school...St Andrew’s and Tiffany Carter, seen at court school said it was best because my son was about to go to college.”
The mother said her son told her he watched TV in the matron’s room. She added: “That seemed wrong to me.”
Carter, who at the time was known as Tiffany Poole, was arrested in 2014.
In a statement to detectives she said: “The boy had a crush on me. He used to give me cuddly toys.
“I never invited boys into my room. My job was to make sure the boys washed and cleaned their teeth in the morning and evenings.
“I was never on my own with the boys. I was not sexually active until I was with my first boyfriend at 19.”
Julian Dale QC, defending, claimed the alleged victim was using the case to help a £120,000 compensation claim against the school.
The boarder originally said the abuse went on for up to six months but, claimed Mr Dale, changed his evidence after it emerged Ms Carter only worked at the school on trial for just over a month.
The QC added: “A lot of evidence in this case is a frightening mess.”
Carter, of Eastbourne, denies gross indecency and indecent assault. The trial continues. TOMMY Cooper will be honoured with a blue plaque at his family home in west London today.
Cooper, with his shambling magic act and catchphrase “just like that”, was nominated by friend and fellow comedian Ken Dodd.
Former BBC director general Greg Dyke will dedicate the plaque at the house in Chiswick where Cooper lived with wife Gwen and two children from 1955 until he died aged 63 in 1984.
Cooper used to entertain comics Roy Hudd, Eric Sykes, Jimmy Tarbuck and other friends there.