Teacher accused of having sex with pupil on wife’s wedding dress ‘had threesomes with two students’
Alleged victims and his ex-wife gave evidence against him in court today
A FORMER boarding school teacher allegedly engaged in two threesomes with two students and would "sneak" into one of their homes at night while her parents slept nearby, a court has heard.
During the third day of his trial the jury were told by Simon Ball’s defence how the main victim had a "crush" on her teacher at the school in North Yorkshire.
Peterborough Crown Court heard how "everybody" at the school knew about the four-month relationship the chapel choir master had with a pupil.
The allegations are that the 42-year-old abused three schoolgirls aged between 13 and 16 between 2001 and 2004 during his time as a music teacher.
It is alleged he had sex with two of the female victims while they were students at the boarding school.
Ball denies four counts of indecent assault against former students and five counts of engaging in sexual activity while in a position of trust between 2001 and 2004.
During a police interview given in May last year, the third alleged victim said why she had gone to police in 2004 and first made allegations of inappropriate behaviour.
In footage she said: "I suppose I just thought it was wrong.
"Eventually what I just thought is what is happening is not right and I suppose it was for her (second victim) I think as well.
"This isn't normal and I just, I suppose I was a bit afraid for her."
The female spoke of the time when the two alleged victims had a threesome with the teacher.
She said: "It felt like he was calling the shots and that it was just not right."
The victim continued: "It was really far away from what was right and what should be happening and he was quite, I say slimey, that doesn't make sense but I suppose me sleeping with him as well.
"I got the feeling it wasn't what you, it wasn't what a normal boyfriend would expect from their girlfriend."
The jury of seven men and five women heard how the third victim never had a sexual encounter with Ball alone, but engaged in threesomes twice with the main victim.
However when she went to police in 2004 she hadn't mentioned her alleged threesomes with Ball, and only spoke of his relationship with the second student.
In her police interview, the victim was asked by detectives why she didn't tell police about her alleged encounter with Ball.
She said: "I was frightened, I was scared. I felt like I would have been blamed so I felt like my dad would have been angry at me because he would have felt like I had let him down.
"I felt like I had done something wrong and dirty."
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The court was also told how Ball would allegedly hide bottles of alcohol in the piano in one of the music rooms for the two students.
But after the third victim made the allegations about her "best friend" in 2004, they went from "intensely close" to "immediately separate".
She added: "Teachers weren't speaking to me."
She continued: "I just remember feeling vilified, feeling like I had done something wrong. Not by senior members of staff.
"But the members of staff that had been involved with Simon, his friends."
The third victim, who is now aged in her late twenties and cannot be named for legal reasons, also gave evidence to the court on Wednesday behind a screen.
She was asked to read part of her diary aloud which she believes she wrote in 2004 and was aimed at herself and the second victim.
The alleged victim said: "Why did I do it? So stupid. His face when he fucked you, so violent like he wanted to actually hurt you."
She continued: "He is, whether you believe, want to believe or not, a paedophile. His eyes were empty of feeling or love. An abyss of imagination that has blinded you."
Ms Claire Matthews, defending Ball, said the second victim had had a "crush" on Ball and was actually "smitten with him".
Addressing the third victim, she said: "I am going to suggest to you that nothing of a sexual nature took place between either you and him, or either you and (female's name). Presumably you disagree with that?"
The alleged victim said: "I would say that is not true."
The victim went on to say how she told police about further allegations in 2015 after police came to her because she felt more secure than when she was 15.
The court previously heard how Ball, of Greenwich, London, started working at the school from 1999 to 2004 before moving to another school in Cambridgeshire.
Ball previously pleaded guilty to five counts of sexual activity by person in a position of trust in May this year following allegations made by a student at his new school.
The ex-wife of the boarding school teacher said he told her to lie to police that she had got rid of her wedding dress, the court heard.
Hannah Atherton split from her ex-husband Simon Ball over text messages that he sent to pupils, but she said that following the split he told her he was being investigated by police, that the allegations were "malicious" and that officers would ask her about her wedding dress.
"He asked me to say I had disposed of the wedding dress myself," she said. "He gave me the reason that there were stains on the wedding dress and he had therefore had to throw it away, but if I said it he wouldn't get into trouble."
She said he suggested the stains were caused by a damp wall, and she agreed to give the account to police as she did not want to appear to be a "bitter ex-wife".
"I was trying to move on gracefully and he had me under his spell," she said. "I was still willing to stick up for him."
Mrs Atherton had met her former husband at Oxford University and they married in the chapel at the school in North Yorkshire, the court heard.
After they split she stayed in the spare room at their three-storey, mid-terrace house on around six or seven occasions, and on the final visit she said she saw a text on his phone which he usually kept "absolutely glued to him".
She said she read a message on his phone, in the living room, from a contact stored in the phone as Hannah - her name - but signed off with the nickname of a pupil at the school.
It contained "suggestive banter" including "something about the feel of leather seats of a car", she said.
She said she confronted him about why the contact was in his phone as "Hannah".
"He said that was because he had the phone with him when he had been with other teachers and he didn't want them to be suspicious so he wanted them to think that messages were coming from me," she said.
Mrs Atherton said she worked away in Birmingham during the week for some of the time they lived in Yorkshire.
Ball, of Greenwich, admitted five counts of engaging in sexual activity while in a position of trust at the Cambridgeshire school at an earlier hearing, but denies a string of indecency and sexual assault charges relating to his time in Yorkshire.
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