Former teacher facing jail on pupil sex charges

Gordon Fleming, 66, now of Oswestry, appeared at Swansea Crown Court yesterday.

Fleming pleaded guilty to 24 counts of sexual assault. The court was told the abuse took place in the 1970s and 80s. Fleming admitted indecent assault on 24 different girls, all when they were aged under 13, in historic cases.

It also emerged that Fleming had been jailed for three years in 1992 for similar offences, but against different girls.

Fleming, now of Burma Road, Park Hall in Oswestry, was told he would receive a substantial jail sentence. Judge Geraint Walters refused to grant him bail until a sentencing hearing on May 9.

He said: “You systematically sexually abused no fewer than 24 young girls. Now that you have pleaded guilty you are in a very different position.”

Fleming’s barrister, Dyfed Thomas, said he accepted that a prison sentence “of some length” would be handed down.

The court heard that Fleming, originally from Machynlleth, was jailed for three years at Chester Crown Court in 1992 for nine charges of a similar nature while he was headmaster at a village school near Welshpool.

The more recent charges relate to offences at another Mid Wales school and follows an inquiry by Dyfed Powys Police after several of his pupils reported what happened to them while they were in his classroom.

Officers made a wider appeal to girls he taught at the school between 1976 and 1981 and 21 came forward.

The women, who can’t be named for legal reasons, will each give a victim impact statement when Fleming is sentenced on May 9.

Before the hearing was concluded Judge Walters ordered Fleming to register with the police as a sex offender. As he was led to the cells below the court Fleming blew a kiss to his wife, who was sitting in the public gallery.