Former Christ’s Hospital master Peter Webb abused schoolboy

Former Christ’s Hospital master Peter Webb would have been freed on Friday after finishing a five-and-a-half year sentence for abusing boys at the school.

He was jailed for another 12 months after a judge told him he still sounded like a true paedophile.

Her Honour Judge Christine Laing QC told Webb he would be going back to prison rather than being released after a two day trial at Hove.

“I have no doubt at all the only reason you contested this was to avoid your sentence being extended any further “You still sound like a true paedophile,” the judge said.

“Saying you did not want the good name of the school to be dragged through the mud.”

Webb denied three counts of abusing an 11-year-old boy.

The judge described his offences as a serious breach of trust.

He was given 12 months for each offence to be served together and added on to the sentence he was due to finish on Friday.

The 77-year-old was convicted following a two day trial at the first covid compliant court to hear cases in Sussex since lockdown in March.

A man, now in his 50s told the court Webb indecently assaulted him at least 12 times when he was an 11-year-old boarder during the same period as the other offences.

The abuse started during his first term at the school when he was making coffee for Webb and other boys before morning communion.

The man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, told the court he was a skinny, frightened child who did not recognise the behaviour as abuse at the time.

“A small number of us would go down and have coffee in his study.

“There were sofas and seating and a piano in the corner, a baby grand.

“It was a small, cosy room.

“It was always warm and smelt of pipe smoke and coffee.

“I was a tiny, spindly child.

“Scared, vulnerable, crying inside little boy.”

His former house tutor groped him in the kitchen as he made coffee for the group, he said.

“I’m not sure I even recognised it as a sexual act at that time,” he said.

“His breathing was heavy.

“I remember the smell of stale tobacco and alcohol from him.

“It wasn’t stimulation, the word I would use would be explanation.”

The abuse was a major influence in his life and he turned to drugs after school, the court heard.

“There was a regime of corporal punishment in the school in those days that had no control or logic to it.

“Beatings were common.

“Peter Webb never beat me,” he said.

The man said he had no contact with the school or any other pupils since leaving.

He contacted Sussex Police after reading court reports of abuse trials involving Christ’s Hospital teachers.

“Some penny dropped and suddenly I realised what had gone on was not about me It was about his needs and gratification.

“It was a changing moment,” the man said.

Webb taught at the exclusive school near Horsham for 20 years.

He never taught again and was living in Authon-Ebeon, France.

His victims started to come forward after Operation Yew Tree exposed celebrity sex crimes.

He was asked to leave Christ’s Hospital after a boy complained of abuse in 1984.

Hove Trial Centre heard he was jailed for 18 months in 2015 after admitting three offences against the same 11-year-old boy.

He was jailed again for four years in 2017 after the same court heard he abused four more boys.

This sentence was increased to five years and six months after it was referred to the High Court as an unduly lenient sentence.

Webb was one of five former male members of staff charged with abusing children at the school.

Chaplain Gary Dobbie was jailed for 12 years for abusing nine pupils across three decades.

Sports coach Ajaz Karim, was jailed for 10 years after assaulting six girls between 1985 and 1993.

James Andrew Husband was jailed for 17 years for raping and indecently assaulting a girl as young as 14 between 1990 and 1994.

Peter Burr admitted indecently assaulting pupils at the school between the 1960s and 1980s and was also jailed.

Gabby Henty for the Crown told the court the teacher abused the boy by groping him on at least seven occasions while he was a boarder at the school in the 1970s.

“His role was to look after the boys and organise their day to day routine and ensure they were all in bed in the dormitory at the right time.

“He was desperately unhappy at school.

“Attention made him feel warm.

“He didn’t realise it was sexual.

“He liked the attention and having a secret with his teacher.

“This was a result of this defendant’s grooming process.

“Webb preyed upon his vulnerability.

“His first term was a time when he should have been able to rely on his house tutor as a father figure to look after him.

“Instead, he used his position to groom him and gain his trust for his own sexual satisfaction.”

Christ’s Hospital is one of the oldest boarding schools in the country and the Queen is a patron.

The school was founded by Edward VI in 1552.

Fees at the Church of England boarding school are around £31,500 a year and pupils still wear a Tudor-style uniform.