Private school teacher ‘watched porn with pupil before sex fest’
A BOARDING school teacher had an ‘all-night sex fest’ with a girl pupil after watching porn with her at his home, a court heard yesterday.
Music teacher Simon Ball, 42, is also said to have persuaded the girl to take part in a threesome with another teenage girl from the school.
When she appeared upset, he allegedly told her: ‘Don’t get jealous – come and join in.’
The claims were made on the second day of a trial where Ball is accused of seducing or molesting four pupils aged between 13 and 16 at £31,800-a-year Giggleswick School in Settle, North Yorkshire.
He has admitted five offences against one of the girls, with the prosecution telling the jury: ‘Those convictions show he has a clear sexual interest in schoolgirls.’
A police interview was played at Peterborough Crown Court yesterday, where one of the alleged victims described watching adult videos with the married teacher during their four-month relationship.
‘I remember him putting pornography on while we were in the living room and it was just like... it was just a sex fest. It was sex all night,’ she told officers.
‘There was a time – I think it was that night ... he asked me to have sex on his wife’s wedding dress and we did. He laid it on the floor and we had sex on top of it and he put it back in the cupboard.’ The former pupil, now in her 20s, said she had developed a hatred for Ball’s now ex-wife, Hannah Atherton, 40, based on what the defendant had told her. She said: ‘I just remember she was there sometimes, around the school,
‘Don’t get jealous – come and join in’
and I absolutely hated her and he just made me have this feeling about her that she was a complete and utter cow.
‘And I remember when he suggested doing that on her wedding dress, it was like “She’s a bitch” and “Let’s do it”.’ The woman spoke of another occasion when she and another alleged victim went to Ball’s house and they ended up having sex with him at the same time. ‘When we were there he invited me up to his bedroom and he asked [the other girl] to come too,’ she said.
‘I remember feeling really jealous because I didn’t realise that is why he got her to come around as well.
‘And when he saw me getting jealous he said, you know, “Don’t get jealous – come and join in”.’
Ball, of Greenwich, South-East London, began his teaching career at the independent co-educational school in 1999 after he left university. He remained there until 2004, despite receiving a verbal warning about ‘inappropriate behaviour’ in 2001. The jury has been told there will be evidence that the school’s handling of complaints made by pupils was ‘seriously lacking’.
It is claimed the defendant received a ‘positive reference’ from Giggleswick when he moved to another boarding school – Kimbolton School in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire – in 2004.
He was suspended from his job as music director there last year after the allegations came to light.
Ball has admitted five charges of sexual activity by a person in a position of trust involving a sixth-former at Giggleswick.
He denies four counts of indecent assault and five of engaging in sexual activity while in a position of trust relating to three other pupils.
The trial continues.