A MUSIC teacher has been charged with historic child sex offences against four boys.

Andrew Simon Wilson, 56, a self-employed music teacher and organist, appeared on bail at Crawley Magistrates' Court today charged with a total of 20 offences, including 17 against four boys aged between nine and 14.

The alleged offences include two cases of indecent assault and two of gross indecency on a boy, eight cases of indecent assault and two cases of gross indecency on a boy and one case of indecent assault on a boy, all in locations around Warnham in the mid-1980s.

He is also charged with two cases of sexual assault and one case of meeting a child for sexual activity, both relating to a boy between 2009 and 2010, at locations in South London and Germany.

He faces charges of making a total of 39 allegedly indecent images of unidentified children, found at his address when he was arrested last September.

Wilson, of Norwood Way, Walton-on-the Naze, Essex, did not enter any pleas and the case was sent for trial, with an initial appearance at Lewes Crown Court on February 14.

The alleged offences in Warnham are said to have occurred while Wilson was choirmaster at St Margaret’s Church in the village.

Those in South London and Germany are alleged to have occurred while he was a choirmaster and teacher at St Mary’s Church in Beddington, Surrey.