Swaylands School: Three men jailed over sex abuse

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Three men have been jailed for 28 indecent assaults against boys at a school for vulnerable children.

Former care workers Colwyn Baker, 71, David Hennessy, 74, and Nigel Putman, 62, abused youngsters at the now-closed Swaylands School in Penshurst, Kent, between 1963 and 1979.

Baker was sentenced to 20 years in prison for 20 offences.

Hennessy was jailed for 12 years for six offences and Putman sentenced to three years for two offences.

'Got away'

Sentencing the three men at Maidstone Crown Court at the end of a 12-week trial, Judge Philip Statman said: "This is one of the worst possible breaches of trust a court can deal with."

He said to Baker: "You must have thought as you entered your seventh decade you'd got away with it."

Baker, of Craighouse Avenue, Morningside, Edinburgh, had denied 24 indecent assault and three serious sexual assault charges.

Hennessy, of Westfields in Narborough, King's Lynn, Norfolk, had denied 17 indecent assault charges, one of gross indecency with a child and one serious sexual assault.

Putman, 62, of Kings Road, Slough, Berkshire, had denied three indecent assaults.

'Didn't realise'

The three were found not guilty of 15 charges, and the jury was unable to decide on five counts.

One victim said in a statement issued after sentencing: "At the time I didn't realise it was wrong because the abuse was done in a way that made it seem OK.

"I was sent to the school because I needed looking after. I was a little boy and I wasn't looked after. I was made to do things that I shouldn't. This will always affect me."

During the trial, the jury heard that Baker had been convicted in 1994 of four counts of indecent assault on a boy aged under 16 and one count of gross indecency.

It was also disclosed that Hennessy was convicted in December 1993 of four counts of indecent assault on a boy and two sex offences against a pupil.

'Remain scarred'

The judge praised the victims for their "courage, dignity and restraint".

Speaking to the three men he had just jailed, he said: "What those pupils, as they then were, suffered at your hands is seared in their memory banks, in my judgment, for the rest of their lives.

"They remained scarred by what happened to them and it's clear from their victim impact statements of their shame and embarrassment."

Swaylands School, which was run by Barnet council in north London, was a residential facility for boys with emotional and behavioural difficulties.

It was closed at the end of the summer term in 1994, 18 months after the council and Kent Police became aware of allegations of sexual abuse of students at the school by two staff members.

Following the verdicts, the council said it was "truly sorry" that young boys had suffered at the school.