Peter Wright (pictured), the head of £30,000-a-year Caldicott School in Buckinghamshire, plied boys with whisky and trips in his sports car before molesting them between 1959 and 1970
A headmaster at a prestigious prep school who sexually abused his pupils escaped justice for 10 years after his barrister deliberately misled a court, it has been claimed.
Peter Wright, the head of £30,000-a-year Caldicott School in Buckinghamshire, plied boys with whisky and trips in his sports car before molesting them.
The elite boarding school for boys, which was attended by former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and England cricket captain Andrew Strauss, was rocked after it emerged Wright was at the centre of a web that ensnared 30 boys.
He was sentenced to eight years behind bars in 2014 after being convicted of sexually assaulting five pupils aged between eight to 13 between 1959 and 1970. Three other former teachers were also later convicted of child sex offences.
But Conservative MP Dame Cheryl Gillan has today said he would have faced justice 10 years earlier if his barrister hadn't have deceived the court dealing with his case.
The MP for Chesham and Amersham used her Parliamentary privilege to claim that Andrew Bright QC, who is now a serving judge, deliberately misled Aylesbury Crown Court and deceived a judge to get an earlier trial halted.
In 2003 Wright had been charged with child sex offences against five other pupils at the school and was about to go on trial at Aylesbury Crown Court when the case was abruptly stopped.
Mr Bright, defending Wright, told the court the defence team had written to the school for vital and important copies of the pupil records but had been informed they were not available.
Pictured: Caldicott School in Buckinghamshire where fees are £30,000 a year
They successfully argued that as a result the trial could not go ahead because it would be an abuse of process and the case was stayed - a legal tool used to halt a trial.
Speaking in Westminster today Dame Gillan told the House of Commons the defence team had misled the court because the school had written to the defence team offering to provide them with the pupil records.
She also said the defence team knew this and deliberately misled the Judge Roger Connor - who was set to preside on the case.
Dame Gillan said: 'Had this correspondence been disclosed to the court, it could have assisted the prosecution and could, in all probability, have undermined the grounds of the application to stay the Indictment.
'However, neither the judge nor prosecuting counsel ever saw this correspondence because it was never produced in open court, even though Mr Bright QC, according to
