THE former head of a school near Evesham has been found guilty of molesting an 11-year-old boy at a school in Middlesex.

Richard Alston, 70, was the head of New Barns School in Toddington, an independent school for children aged six to 12 with emotional and behavioural problems which closed in 1992.

He met the victim while working at Cavendish School for "maladjusted boys" in Greenford in the late 1970s.

Together with his partner, Peter Righton, the pensioner forced the youngster to watch pornography and then perform sex acts on him.

It was the investigation into Righton, who was convicted of importing child pornography in 1992, that led to MP Tom Watson using parliamentary privilege in 2012 to allege that there was "clear intelligence" of a VIP child sex abuse ring.

Giving evidence, Alston explained that he realised he was gay as a young adult, and met Righton - 19 years his senior - when he was just 16 years old.

Despite being cleared of a number of offences, he was convicted of incidents that took place when Righton was present and a participant.

A jury at Southwark Crown Court in London cleared Alston of molesting the youngster on school grounds and during a camping trip when he was alleged to have crept into his tent after "story time".

The verdicts were reached last week, but can only be reported now for legal reasons.

Alston, who was in a position of trust as a teacher, was found guilty of one count of indecent assault and one count of indecency with a child.

Jurors found that he and Righton groomed the schoolboy after he began visiting them at their flat, plying him with alcohol and buying him gifts such as cigarettes and toys.

Prosecutor Peter Clement said: "It is here that the defendant and his then partner further groomed and acted indecently towards that boy."

Jurors were told that while the youngster saw the two adults as "friends", their motivation was to indecently assault him.

Giving evidence, the complainant said: "I was fine with going to their house. They seemed like really nice guys.

"In a word I wouldn't want for anything, I could get whatever I liked - toys, sweets, anything, money - they were always very generous."

Although the victim said nothing of the alleged abuse at the time because he was "embarrassed", when he was 16 he confronted Righton about what he had been subjected to.

Alston was found to have made the schoolboy watch pornographic films and then ask him to perform sex acts on him and Righton.

The court heard that their friend Charles Napier - now a convicted paedophile - would also be present for some of these viewings.

Last December, Napier, the half-brother of senior Conservative MP John Whittingdale, was jailed for 13 years for carrying out hundreds of sexual assaults on young boys.

Alston is due to be sentenced on September 28.