FORMER Dr Challoner's Grammar School teacher and Conservative party agent Richard Small has been jailed for four years for indecently assaulting three pupils in the early 1980s.

Small, 57, from Wolverhampton, attacked teenage boys from the school in Chesham Road, Amersham.

He later became a campaign agent for the Aylesbury Conservative Association, playing a leading role in MP David Lidington's election win.

Sentencing Small at Reading Crown Court on Friday, Judge Stanley Spence told him the acts were "total and utter breaches of your position of trust as a teacher".

Victim Edward Short, 36, now living in Devon, waived his right to anonymity to encourage other victims to come forward. He said: "The judge was spot on. I don't think the people who commit these crimes have any idea of how lasting the effect is."

The court heard that Small offered Mr Short, then 15, a lift home from school which led to sexual assaults including one in a layby in Beaconsfield.

Two older boys, who cannot be named, were also assaulted.

Prosecutor Neil Moore said Small used his status to "make advances towards the boys at the school and then moved on to sexually abusing them".

Mr Moore said Mr Short was abused by other teachers at the school and attempted suicide by jumping off a bridge soon after turning 16.

Patricia May, defending, said Small had faced the charges with "frankness and remorse".

Small left the school in 1987 when the then headteacher John Loarridge became aware of a complaint. Mr Moore said no action was taken after Mr Loarridge gave one of the boys two options. He told him he could go through the courts and "have his name in lights" or the head could speak to Small himself. The boy agreed to the latter option and Small left after the head spoke to him, said Mr Moore.

Police arrested Small in 2002 after a complaint was made against past teachers at the school. The complaint led one former teacher to kill himself. Police did not prosecute a third while another was not traced.

Small was sentenced to concurrent terms of four years for indecent assaults of a boy under 16 and two three-year terms for indecent assaults of males over 16. He pleaded guilty to all the charges.

Dr Mark Fenton, the school's headteacher since 2001, said child protection procedures were now robust. He added: "I am relieved that justice has been done in this case after all these years."