Lancashire teacher cleared of sex assaults on pupils
28 September 2011
A jury at Preston Crown Court took just 20 minutes to acquit Peter Wilson, represented by Garden Court North Chambers’ Mark George QC, of touching and kissing young girls indecently at a Lancashire primary school.
At the start of the defence case, Mark said: “Mr Wilson doesn’t dispute there are occasions when he touches children and he says, entirely appropriately.”
“On occasions he thought praising a child was a good idea, to encourage them and if they had done good work and, maybe at the same time, to pat them on the shoulders or clasp both shoulders together to say well done.”
“Nowadays, it seems as if encouragement, a clasp of the shoulders, or a pat on the shoulders, or pat on the arm can be misunderstood and lead to someone like Mr Wilson becoming the subject of suspicion and a case of this sort.”
After the case, Mr Wilson spoke of his “horrible ordeal” and told of his delight at having his reputation restored: “The past 18 months or so have been the most stressful of my life and my wife’s. My greatest distress was that as a result of these unfounded allegations, social services were present at the birth of our first child and I was required to sign an agreement to say that I could not live in the same house as my wife and newborn baby.”
