Former Eton teacher jailed for student sex assaults

A former Eton College teacher has been jailed for sexually assaulting a "vulnerable" boy at the boarding school.

Jacob Leland, who taught Russian at the Berkshire establishment, sexually assaulted a student at his teachers' accommodation and during a school trip, Reading Crown Court was told.

The 37-year-old, who was found guilty of three counts of sexual assault on a male last year, was sentenced to three years and three months in prison on Friday.

Det Const Kelly Ware said Leland "completely abused" his position of trust by committing "abhorrent crimes that will have a long-lasting effect on his victim".

The court heard Leland, from Gatcombe Road, in Islington, London, first assaulted the pupil after inviting him and his friends over to his flat, where he gave them alcohol and cigarettes.

He then asked the friends to leave before kissing the boy and taking his hands and placing them on his own groin.

At a later date, during a school trip abroad, Leland, who was 23 at the time of the offending in 2012, performed oral sex on the boy.

Judge Kirsty Real, sentencing, said: "The victim had had a number of significant bereavements and traumas in his own life. As a result, when he joined the school, he was vulnerable and low on confidence.

"I am not sure on the evidence that you were fully aware of the extent of his vulnerability, so as to characterise it as specific targeting.

"Nonetheless, that vulnerability was recognised by you on some level, and was what enabled you to become close to him."

Defence barrister Esther Schutzer-Weissmann told the judge Leland was a "late-developing man who was like a teenager" at the time of the offending.

She said his actions were "out of character" and a "lamentable lapse of judgment".

Although the judge accepted there was a degree of immaturity, exacerbated by Leland's autism spectrum disorder diagnosis, she ruled his condition "did not impair [his] ability to exercise appropriate judgment".

He will be subject to notifications under the sex offenders register for an indefinite period and will also be barred from working with children.

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