A jury has cleared retired Portslade school teacher Geoffrey Parkin of two abuse charges but failed to reach a verdict on five other counts.
Parkin, 67, of Nursery Close, Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, is due to learn on Monday 21 September whether he faces a retrial on those five charges.
He was accused of indecently assaulting six boys – all 11 or 12 years old – at Portslade County Secondary School for Boys, Hove Crown Court was told.
The offences were said to have happened between the start of the 1970-71 school year and the start of the next school year. Parkin was 22 or 23 years old at the time.
Most of the offences were alleged to have taken place at a nearby swimming school which belonged to the Mile Oak Approved School for Boys in Mile Oak Road, Portslade. The approved school closed in 1977 and has since been demolished.
It was claimed that he had flicked four boys on their naked backsides with a towel and smacked one of them on the bottom with his hand.
He is also accused of picking up two boys between the legs and throwing them into the swimming pool and cupping one of the boys’ genitals.
Parkin was also accused of indecently assaulting a boy in a tent during a camping trip in the West Country.
The case follows a year-long investigation by detectives from Brighton and Hove CID into claims first made to Sussex Police in November 2013.
The Portslade Boys’ County Secondary School merged with Mile Oak Girls’ School, previously known as Portslade Secondary Modern School for Girls, to become Portslade School and Community College in 1972.
The merged school was later renamed Portslade Community College. It has since become the Portslade Aldridge Community Academy (PACA).
