Ex-headteacher at prep school attended by Prince George sentenced for child sex crimes

The previous deputy headteacher on the London main college attended by Prince George and Princess Charlotte was convicted of paying tens of 1000’s of {dollars} for pictures and movies of youngsters being sexually abused.

Matthew Smith — who labored on the ritzy Thomas’s Preparatory Faculty — was sentenced to 12 years in jail this week for paying greater than $85,000 for sexual pictures of youngsters as younger as seven, in line with the South West Information Service.

The conviction of the 35-year-old former instructor left employees on the college “shocked and appalled past measure,” a college spokesperson stated.

The $25,000-a-year college, situated in Battersea, southwest London, stated that Smith has not labored on the college since expenses had been introduced towards him.

The spokesperson emphasised Smith’s transient tenure on the college — simply round eight weeks.

“Mr. Smith’s employment on the college, which commenced in September 2022, was terminated with quick impact when the college first discovered of the costs towards him in November,” the college stated.

“Whereas the Nationwide Crime Company has confirmed that not one of the issues below investigation associated to the college or its pupils, these deplorable actions represent an unforgivable breach of belief and our ideas are with those that have been impacted or broken by them,” the assertion continued.

Thomas’s Prep stated it’s “completely dedicated to the continued security and wellbeing of our pupils and our entire college group.”

Smith, who’s initially from East Dulwich, southeast London, had pleaded responsible to 22 offenses, together with encouraging the rape of a kid below 13, inflicting a toddler below 13 to interact in sexual exercise and arranging the sexual abuse of a kid, in line with Sky Information.

Investigators discovered that the previous instructor had paid youngsters in India greater than $82,000 to abuse youthful kids over a five-year interval and had shared movies and pictures on the darkish net.

Smith had been dwelling in Nepal the place he labored at one other college in the course of the time, however had beforehand labored in orphanages and with different organizations throughout India between 2007 and 2014, Sky Information reported.

Prince William and Kate Middleton’s kids — George, Charlotte, and Louis —  have attended the luxurious Lambrook School close to Windsor since fall 2022 after the household moved out of London to Adelaide Cottage.

George enrolled at Thomas’s in 2017 and Charlotte enrolled in 2018. Each had left earlier than Smith was employed by the college.