A former teacher at a prestigious private school attended by ex-Chancellor George Osborne will serve another five years behind bars for abusing two more boys when they were 12.
David Samson, also known as David Egan Samson-Mallett, 74, was employed at St Paul’s Preparatory School (formerly Colet Court) in Barnes, southwest London, in the late 1970s.
Samson was sentenced for 14 years, nine months and 14 days in prison for his historic sex attack against three 14-year-old pupils.
One of those victims had attended St Paul’s while the other two went to Spencer Park School in Wandsworth, and De Stafford School in Caterham, Surrey between 1976 and 1983.
Samson was convicted of four counts last April of gross indecency. He also admitted three counts each of indecent attack and buggery.
These charges are against two boys that he had abused from 1976 to 1980. The victims both reported the crimes to the police separately in 2017.
David Samson, also known as David Egan Samson-Mallett, 74, will serve another five years behind bars for abusing two more boys when they were 12.
He was employed at St Paul’s Preparatory School (formerly Colet Court) in Barnes, southwest London (pictured), in the late 1970s
Heather Stangoe, Prosecutor of Heather Stangoe stated that Samson’s parents employed Samson to tutor maths when he was 12.
Ms. Stangoe. said: ‘[The victim recalls going alone to the defendant’s house in Barnes for maths tutoring.
‘As he was leaving, he recalls being in the lounge at the defendant’s house and the defendant being in the hallway.
‘The defendant opened his dressing gown and revealed his erect penis to the boy. He told him not to mention that to anyone else.’
The boy was ‘horribly naive’ at the time and did not share the incident with his parents.
His parents became friends with Samson and his wife and would frequently invite them over for meals.
‘During one visit, the defendant reached under the table and touched his penis over his clothing,’ said Ms Stangoe.
The court heard that during those visits the predator manufactured a reason to take the boy up to his bedroom and proceeded to molest him.
‘The defendant would tell him to lie naked on the floor. He took photographs of the naked boy,’ said the prosecutor.
The brazen abuse continued even when the victim’s parents were in the house, with Samson once making the boy perform oral sex on him and on another committing a serious sex attack on him.
‘In total, the abuse went on for a period of about 18 months to two years.
‘He felt unable to tell his parents, that they would be ashamed of him and they would think it was his fault and that they would not believe him,’ Ms Stangoe added.
It wasn’t until after he confided in a friend in University and the victim was persuaded to share his story.
‘[He] feels that had he been brave enough to report what happened to him at the time other boys who had been abused by this defendant would not have suffered,’ said the prosecutor.
Samson pleaded guilty to four counts gross indecency, including one count each of indecent assault, indecent assault, and buggery.
‘It has affected [him]It’s not surprising. He was a failure at school and left the university without any qualification. After 14 years of high school, he started drinking and using drugs.
‘He found it very difficult to form relationships with anyone but fortunately now has children and grandchildren,’ said Ms Stangoe.
The court heard that the abuse of the second victim started when he was ‘12 and 13’ and took maths lessons at Samson’s house.
‘The first time the defendant touched him he was sitting at a table,’ said the prosecutor.
‘He asked [the victim]He stood up, and then he reached for his legs and pulled his pants down.
‘He remembers that it hurt and he told the defendant to get off him. The defendant did and they sat back down.’
Samson returned from another incident completely naked to the same room. This shocked schoolboy attempted to overlook it by looking at his books.
‘[The victim]His mother was not allowed to come back into the home, so he refused to leave. She went back to the defendant’s address and told him what she thought of him.
‘His father reported the matter to the police but it was decided not to put a young teenager through the trauma of giving evidence,’ said Ms Stangoe.
‘In 2017 he became depressed. It was his fiancee that convinced him to do something against the man who cast such a shadow over his adulthood.’
The court heard the abuse turned the second victim from an ‘outgoing and popular’ schoolboy to someone withdrawn and who experienced bullying.
Nicola Shannon, defending, said Samson understands he is facing a sentence of further imprisonment ‘of some length’.
‘He has expressed blatantly to me that his greatest fear is that he will spend the rest of his life in prison.’
She urged the judge ‘to exercise some measure of mercy to allow him some time in the community to spend time with his children and old friends.’
Judge Martin Griffith told the former school master: ‘These are historic offences of sexual abuse committed by you from the 1970s onwards.
‘I deal with you today against a background of you having been sentenced by me for sexual abuse in a school you taught between 1983 to 1985.’
The judge said that while the latest two victims had not come forward during Samson’s 2016 trial he would consider how he would have dealt with it if they had when passing sentence.
Sentencing Samson to five years consecutive in jail, he added: ‘It is a great and shocking consideration that that you move from child to child to child throughout your offending here.’
Samson, a bespectacled man with a bearded face, appeared in court via videolink from HMP Ashfield, Bristol. He is currently serving his sentence.
He left St Paul’s School in 1975 and moved to Spencer Park School in Wandsworth, where he taught between 1976 and 1981.
Samson then went on to teach at a girls’ school until 1991.
Occupying a 45-acre site beside the Thames, near Hammersmith Bridge, St Paul’s boasts facilities, including a purpose-built art gallery and 230-seat theatre.
Former pupils include Winston Marshall (Chancellor, Mumford and Sons banjo player) and Dan Snow (TV presenter).
Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general of Georgia was also an ex-student at the school back in the Sixties.