A former teacher at a prestigious Belfast grammar school has been jailed for two years for sexually assaulting four children there in the 1970s.
William Lloyd Lavery, aged 77, of Richmond Avenue in Lisburn, taught at Richmond College in the city.
He was head of the history department.
He was found guilty of six offences of indecent assault involving four pupils after a two-week trial.
The offences occurred between 1974 and 1979.
The independent college later amalgamated with another school.
Lloyd Lavery had denied the accusations against him and claimed he had been the victim of a vendetta on social media.
But the trial jury found he had been responsible for a number of sexual assaults against young students.
The court heard that Lloyd Lavery continued to deny his guilt even after his conviction.
A prosecution barrister told Laganside Crown Court that it was a "classic breach of trust case" involving a teacher-pupil relationship.
"That's of the upmost seriousness in terms of aggravating factors," she said.
The trial heard that he had sexually assaulted one victim while asking her to help him reach a book in a store cupboard.
One of those assaulted said she felt that she had been "hunted like prey" through her own school by a teacher for his own sexual gratification.
One child told her mother about what had happened when she was aged 13, and they went to the school about it.
The mother, now aged 93, told the trial the approach appeared to be to do nothing about it.
The court was told that three of the victims had provided impact statements.
Parts of several were read to the court.
"I have never let William Lloyd Lavery ruin my life by any means, but he has certainly given it a dimension I could do without," one wrote.
Another referencing his continued denials, said: "If anything gives an insight into his way of thinking, it’s this.
"Right up to his very last breath on the witness stand he was abusing us."
The court heard that after leaving Richmond College, Lloyd Lavery went on to teach in Lurgan Community College and become deputy director of a higher education institute.
He also worked as a political advisor to a number of Ulster Unionist MLAs at Stormont where he did research and wrote speeches.
Judge Patrick Lynch said the defendant had violated the trust placed in him in the "grossest manner".
He said the case should stand as a warning to anyone minded to harm children that there crime "would catch up with them decades after" and that they would spend the rest of their lives "looking over their shoulders in fear of that day of reckoning coming".
