A former teacher has been cleared of child sex charges after he was accused of washing boys in a boarding school shower three decades ago.

Brian Truan had denied nine offences of indecent assault between 1985 and 1988 involving four children aged nine to 14 at the now-closed Elmbridge School near Ongar.

They involved touching of their genitals and private parts and one allegation of masturbating a pupil.

The victims claimed they were made to “spread their legs while being washed in the bath”; were “towel dried naked” and their genitals repeatedly touched.

It was also claimed that Mr Truan, now 80 and of Church Road, Peldon, near Colchester, held one boy’s penis under cover of a towel and moved his hand backwards and forwards.

Three of the alleged victims came forward after police began an historic sex abuse investigation in 2014 into another teacher at the same Essex County Council school, which closed in 1994.

The fourth repeated claims which police had investigated at the time, in 1988 when he was 13, on which a decision was made to take no further action against Mr Truan.

That same witness alleged that another teacher at Elmbridge "was doing some things to boys", although he was oblivious to it at the time.

Mr Truan denied all charges during his trial.

He claimed the four were all part of a Facebook group related to a potential civil claim and had “colluded” over their accounts in the hope of financial compensation.

The jury of eight men and four women took six hours to unanimously find him not guilty of all offences at Chelmsford Crown Court yesterday (Wednesday, November 1).

Judge Christopher Morgan discharged the former teacher, who left the court with his supporters.

Mr Truan, who taught at the school from 1959 until he took early retirement when it closed, told the jury he was suspended and then reinstated as a housemaster after the 1988 misconduct allegations, which he had denied.

He said the similarity of the four complainants’ accounts was “evidence of a lot of collusion”.

He also suggested there might be a financial motive for the false allegations.

Mr Truan said: “We know at least one was in a statement for Cambridge County Court to sue Essex County Council.

“Perhaps the others think they may also get on the same bandwagon and eventually, if this case is proved and the jury find me guilty, they may also be able to claim against Essex County Council.

“I don’t know if it is a financial motive but it might be.”

“There’s some connection on Facebook. I cannot say why they all made those [allegations]. All I can say is these things didn’t happen.”