A former teacher at Eton College has been found guilty of three counts of sexual assault on a pupil he used to teach. Jacob Leland, 37, taught Russian at the prestigious school between 2010 and 2012, during which time he performed oral sex on a boy, kissed him, and put his hand on his groin. He was found not guilty of 11 other offences.
Described in court as “young, vibrant, energetic, charismatic”, Leland abused his relationship with his students and fellow staff members. One ex-pupil revealed that he would wrestle with the boys in their bedrooms, putting “his whole body weight” on them. He told The Telegraph: “He would wrestle us on our beds. You’d be sitting in your room, he’d come in, talk to you and then say, ‘OK, let’s wrestle’.
“He would grapple with you, and you had to fight really hard, he’d put his whole body weight on you. My friend would often come into my room afterwards with his face red from wrestling.”
Another added: “Eton has always been very, very good at sweeping things under the carpet rather than taking responsibility.”
Leland was also an assistant to the housemaster at Common Lane House, one of the school’s 25 boarding houses. He would help out on Monday nights, taking the register at 8pm before putting the boys to bed at “lights out”.
One former student explained that the Russian teacher would exploit his relatively young age to try and connect with the boys.
He said: “He was, I think, mimicking the behaviour of the boys to make them feel more secure around him. None of us wanted to be a killjoy who ruined the fun by calling him out.
“I’m sure, if we had hypothetically called it out, then he would just come back and say: ‘Well, that’s what you do. So why can’t I do it?’
“Explicit conversations, obscene remarks, are the sort of things that happen in boarding school every single day. This is how we were with each other.
“So obviously, if a young teacher is doing it as well, you’re probably less likely to question it. We heard one boy say that Leland had asked to touch his penis.
“We thought at the time it was banter gone wrong. Boys would make obscene remarks all the time, so we thought he’d just taken some chat too far.”
Simon Henderson, Eton’s headmaster, described Leland’s behaviour as an “egregious breach of trust”, and said the trial “raises a number of very significant concerns about what happened”.
He said: “I am appalled that this abuse happened at Eton … Eton needs to acknowledge not only that something this serious was able to take place at our school, but also that it took several years for the details of what happened to come to light.
“Those who were directly impacted by Leland’s actions had the right to be safe and secure in our care. It is devastating for them and for us that they were not and I have offered them my unreserved apologies on behalf of the school … we will continue to stand beside them and to do all we can to support them moving forward.”
Mr Henderson added the “safeguarding culture at Eton has been transformed” since the offences occurred, and that the school had commissioned “an external review to consider what happened in this case and to make any recommendations”.