A former teacher has been jailed for indecently assaulting four girls at a south Belfast school in the 1970s.
William Lloyd-Lavery (77), of Richmond Avenue, Lisburn, was on Tuesday handed a two-year sentence at Belfast Crown Court.
The former history teacher was convicted in January of six counts of indecent assault spanning a period when he was aged in his late 20s and early 30s.
Two of his victims were 13 and described being touched sexually both over and under their clothes at locations in the school including the corridor, a storeroom and a stationery cupboard.
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One described her experience as a “loss of innocence which would last to the end of her days” and that it “destroyed her faith in teachers”.
Another woman said the assaults changed her, that she felt ashamed and had sleeping problems for months after which culminated in her sleeping on a mattress on the floor of her parents’ bedroom.
Lloyd-Lavery went on to work at Stormont as a researcher, speech writer and press officer for the Ulster Unionist Party until his retirement in 2017.
He sat in the dock with his head bowed for most of the hearing, with a number of his victims sitting in the public gallery behind him.
A defence barrister requested a delayed sentence, telling the court his client suffers from hypertension and was at an increased risk of a stroke.
The prosecution said the defendant has consistently denied the charges and that a suspended sentence would “have no effect on him”. She said a medical condition “can’t be a get out of jail free card”.
Judge Patrick Lynch told Lloyd-Lavery his actions violated the trust placed in teachers “in the grossest manner and the court cannot but take the most serious view of these offences”.
He said the victims are to be complimented for coming forward to “expose a paedophile”.
“It may be that Lloyd-Lavery now constitutes no danger to children, but [to] emphasise that child abusers, or those who may be tempted to abuse children, that they will never be able to rest easy for the crime will or may catch up with them even decades after the perpetration of those crimes,” he said.
“They will forever be looking over their shoulders in fear of that day of reckoning coming.”
Speaking outside court, Det Insp Kelly Foley said: “This man was an opportunist, using his position of power and trust within the school environment to prey on young girls.
“He thought for a long time he had got away with this, today has proven that the passage of time has no bearing on a criminal justice outcome.
“I want to thank the bravery of the victims in coming forward.” – PA
