Mirfield man Rod Ryall accused of sex assaults
Sep 15 2010 Huddersfield Daily Examiner
A HOUSEMASTER at a school for troubled boys who became a scout leader and council director of social services carried out a string of sex attacks on vulnerable pupils over a period of years, a court heard.
Rod Ryall, 68, of Mirfield, had molested the boys while working at a school in Durham, his trial was told.
He is also alleged to have carried out sex attacks on a young cub scout in his care.
Ryall went on to become director of social services for Calderdale Council.
Ryall appeared at Teesside Crown Court yesterday charged with 10 counts of indecent assault on three alleged victims during the 1960s and 1970s.
Ryall, of Wheatley Drive, denies all the charges.
The court heard that in 1988 he pleaded guilty to four counts of indecent assault, two counts of gross indecency and one other serious sexual assault on boys aged 14 to 17.
Ryall studied physics at Oxford University before taking a PhD in criminology at Cambridge and became a housemaster at Newton Aycliffe Approved School, County Durham, in the mid 1960s.
The prosecution alleges he sexually abused two pupils during his time at the school, where boys who had committed criminal offences were housed and educated.
Adrian Dent, prosecuting, said Ryall befriended one victim and allowed him to watch television in the housemaster’s quarters, in the lead-up to abuse.
Mr Dent said: “This was the 1960s and televisions were not that commonplace and certainly not in institutions like Aycliffe School.
“A housemaster allowing a child to watch television would have been regarded as quite a treat at the time.”
The boy, aged about 14 at the time but now in his 50s, alleged Ryall made him commit sex acts on the housemaster.
Ryall told the child not to tell anybody what had happened, and the boy felt he would not be believed anyway, Mr Dent said.
Another pupil, slightly younger, said he would be sexually abused after delivering Ryall’s breakfast to his living quarters.
By this time the housemaster had left Aycliffe, but returned to work there as part of his criminology studies.
