2017: NICK FISHER JAILED FOR 30 MONTHS FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT AND POSSESSING PAEDOPHILE MANUALS
A FORMER music teacher will spend Christmas behind bars after being found guilty of sexually assaulting two girls and possessing four paedophile manuals.Nicholas Fisher, 43, from Bartestree, was sentenced to 30 months in custody after being found guilty of 10 charges following a two week long trial.
However, he was found not guilty of sexually assaulting five other girls under the age of 13.
Fisher, who had been a music teacher in primary and secondary schools for the last 20 years, also ran his own music school, teaching music to groups and on a one-to-one basis.
The jury heard how on November 25 last year police seized his computer and found numerous indecent photographs of children and four separate paedophile manuals.
Fisher initially denied any interest in children and said that nothing related to child porn or abuse would be found and provided a password for police to access the computer.
Also found on Fisher's computer were images of young girls which were not indecent.
"These girls turned out to be former pupils of the defendant," said John O'Higgins, while opening the trial at Worcester Crown Court.
"When the girls were questioned further, a picture emerged that there was a lot of touching during their lessons and little was thought about it at the time as it wasn't perceived as sexual.
There was a lot of sitting on his lap and hugging him which was completely all unnecessary.
A number of these girls were tickled quite rigorously on their ribs.
"The touching and tickling on their ribs could be sexual but might not be.
It was the kind of behaviour which could be explained very easily and deny any sexual motivation and just being very tactile." Fisher told police that he had the images on his computer as he was making music CDs from the recording of the pupils.
Fisher told the jury he “enjoyed playing around and having fun” with the girls but denied sexual offences.
"The tickling would have been along those lines and I was being a big kid," he told the jury.
"I taught quite a lot of children and didn’t treat any children differently.
"It would be a quick tickle under their arms and on top of the ribs.
I wouldn’t tickle them very often and it was the sort of fun joking behaviour I have done in the past.
I got absolutely no sexual gratification." Fisher added that “from time to time” he would have the younger pupils sat on his lap but it was never something he instigated.
He added that this would be while he was playing the keyboard and demonstrating how to play something.
“They might jump across and perch on my knee but it was not something I would instigate,” said Fisher.
Fisher admitted that he used to hug pupils at the beginning and end of lessons for a couple of seconds, but that there was no sexual reason for it.
Fisher was also found guilty of making indecent images of category A, B and C and of making a moving photograph of a child category A and B.
He had earlier pleaded guilty to making 29 category A indecent images, making 29 category B images and 48 category C found in a paedophile manual titled ‘Jazz Guides’ - which contained advice about abusing children.
He said he downloaded the file from the ‘dark web’ thinking that it was music related.
He added: “Initially I accessed the dark web purely out of being inquisitive.
“I was told by colleagues at other music schools around the country about it.
“The music software we use in the studio is very expensive.
“If I knew indecent images were on there they would have been deleted.
“I may have accidentally put them in a folder but I certainly didn’t know what was on them.
“I had no intention at all of trying to download any content of that nature.
He was also found guilty of possessing three further paedophile manuals which included advice about abusing children- one of these was titled ‘How to Practice Child Love’.
One of the documents found entitled Child Love Levels was seven pages long and described as a "guide to sexual activity with children graded by risk of detection levels one to five." "Level two rated as reasonably secure included intimate hugging and intimate touching," said Mr O'Higgins.
"The four paedophile manuals found were described as truly horrifying."
