Ex-teacher "shocked" by teen sex abuse allegations

Wednesday 16 January 2019

A former schoolteacher accused of sexually abusing two teenage girls has told a jury he was "shocked" and "upset" about the allegations made against him.

Ian David Priestley (66) made the comments during the second day of a Royal Court trial yesterday, as he took to the stand to maintain his innocence in the face of ten charges of sexual misconduct.

During his testimony, Mr Priestley, who previously worked at Le Rocquier and Les Quennevais, strenuously denied the six counts of indecent assault and four counts of procuring an act of gross indecency during the 1990s and 2000s.

The first of his alleged victims, who is now a grown woman, told the jury earlier in the week that she still feels “dirty” after what she says Mr Priestley did to her when she was younger.

The other alleged victim in the says that Mr Priestley indecently assaulted her by groping her over her clothing on four occasions and also forced her to touch him sexually in Howard Davis Park when she was a teenager.

Pictured: One of the women who accuse Ian David Priestley of sexual misconduct says that the abuse occurred in Howard Davis Park on multiple occasions when she was a teenager.

Opening the defence case, Advocate Ian Jones called his client to the stand to give evidence on his own behalf. Advocate Jones took Mr Priestley through every detail of the two women’s testimony and asked him for his version of events.

In response to the first alleged victim’s claim that 66-year-old was aroused whilst he made her lie down on the floor so he could massage her back, Mr Priestley said that there was an occasion when he gave her a massage but it was because she had said “she felt stiff around the neck” and he offered to rub her shoulders for her. 

However, he denied that he had made her lie down or pull her top up and that he was not aroused during the massage.

When asked by the Defence Advocate why the women would make up these accounts, Mr Priestley replied: “I honestly don’t know. I have no idea and I wouldn’t wish to speculate.”

Pictured: Mr Priestley opted to take the stand in order to maintain his innocence.

Crown Advocate Julian Gollop told the Court in his opening statement that the second alleged victim claims that Mr Priestley would “text and call” her when she was a teenager, “telling her that he loved her” as well as arranging to meet her in Howard Davis Park during the 2000’s. 

The Court heard that on each occasion that they met in the park, Mr Priestley would allegedly “kiss her and grope her."

During his evidence, Mr Priestley said he did not arrange to meet the teen, but rather said that he would walk through the park and would often bump into her there. He admitted that “she was there, she wanted to chat” and they would talk about “typical teenage stuff”, but that he “didn’t think anything of it."

In his rebuttal of the woman’s evidence, Mr Priestley said that he “had no access to a mobile phone” at that time so he couldn’t have texted her to arrange the meetings. 

The former teacher said that he would have kissed the young girl, but only “as a welcome”. “It was just a way of welcoming, of saying hello”, he told the Court, but he insisted that nothing sexual occurred between the two of them when he saw her in the park. 

Pictured: The trial has been taking place in the Royal Court throughout this week.

During cross-examination, Crown Advocate Gollop put the women’s testimony to Mr Priestley again, emphasising the clarity of their recollection, asking him repeatedly why either of them would fabricate the allegations.

When confronted by inconsistencies between his testimony before the Court and his Police statement, Mr Priestley said that he “was under stress” when he was interviewed by Police and he’s now had time to recall what happened. 

“I’ve had two-and-a-half years to consider the charges against me... There’s been nothing else on my mind for these two-and-a-half years,” Mr Priestley told the Court.

He maintained that the various scenarios did not occur as either of the women described before the court, insisting that his version of events was the truth and that he didn’t know what would motivate either of them to falsely accuse him.

Today, both Advocates will sum up their case and Royal Court Commissioner Sir Michael Birt will give an overview of all the evidence that has been heard during the trial before the jury retire to consider their verdict.