Retired teacher sexually assaulted young boys in PE lessons, court told

Marcus Marcussen, of Rochford, near Tenbury Wells, on the south Shropshire border, is accused of molesting pupils aged under 16 in the 1950s to the 1970s while working at Ilmington Road Comprehensive School in Birmingham.

He is now on trial at Birmingham Crown Court charged with 30 counts of historic indecent assaults and three of indecency with a child.

Jurors heard the teacher and former youth club worker subjected his terrified victims to inappropriate touching on a weekly basis.

The alleged abuse took place during and after PE lessons and at a swimming pool used by a youth club, which Marcussen helped set up for local children.

His victims were too scared to report him at the time because they were afraid they would get the belt and not be believed, the jury was told.

Prosecutor Sarah Buckingham said they were not pursuing a "witch hunt" against an elderly man but acting in the public interest.

Opening the case on Monday, she said: "He used his position over many years to sexually assault boys.

"These events happened many years ago in a time when the world was a different place. A place where children did not have a voice.

"Because of their age, status and the time they lived in they could not speak out.

"They were equally worried they would not be believed and receive the belt for reporting what he was doing

"This isn't a witch hunt, the prosecution is not picking on a elderly man in his twilight years.

"Whatever his age the prosecution say it is in the public interest people wherever possible are brought to court to answer charges brought against them and for the jury to decide, having listened to the evidence."

She told the jury the case came to light after one of the alleged victims, who was a pupil at the school in the 1970s, sought help after suffering a breakdown.

One of the 25 alleged victims who have since come forward described Marcussen as an "overbearing, demanding and frightening person".

Another ex-pupil said he would never forget him as a "sadistic bully" who repeatedly turned the showers from scalding to freezing cold.

Others said he was a teacher who ruled with a "rod of iron" and who had used what pupils thought was a whale bone for discipline.

Miss Buckingham added: "In fact the defendant accepts he did have something like a whale bone.

"It was a bull's penis he used as an aid to discipline the boys."

The victims claimed they were touched during swimming lessons, where they were made to take part naked and at a gymnasium at the school.

The court heard they were also made to swim nude during scuba diving lessons when Marcussen would watch them underwater through a diving mask.

Miss Buckingham told the jury: "The prosecution say there was only one good reason why they swam naked which is because he was sexually attracted to them.

"It had nothing to do with matters of hygiene or other excuses you may hear about in the course of this trial.

"Boys came to fear PE and compulsory showers and were left confused, vulnerable and invaded."

Miss Buckingham also said Marcussen had posed as an upstanding member of society, while all the time hiding the truth.

He worked at the school in the Weoley Castle area of the city between 1945 and 1983, before he retired.

She said he gave off the impression of "utter respectability" but this was known by his victims to be a "facade".

Marcussen, who appeared in court wearing glasses and a hearing aid, denies all the charges against him.

The trial, which is due to last five weeks, continues.