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Simon Harris was convicted
of abusing vulnerable young Kenyan street children (West Mercia Police/PA)
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A former public school
teacher convicted of abusing vulnerable street children while living in Africa
will be sentenced by a British court today. Charity boss Simon Harris
was convicted by jurors at Birmingham Crown Court in December after victims'
evidence was heard via a video-link to Kenya.
Media reports that the 55-year-old Harris, described
by police as a prolific and calculating sexual predator, had denied luring boys
to his home near Gilgil, Kenya, between 2002 and 2013 using food, money and the
promise of schooling.
But jurors convicted Harris,
of Pudleston near Leominster in Herefordshire, of three indecent assaults, five
sexual assaults and four charges of possessing indecent images of children.
However, he was acquitted of
10 other sex offences, including four of child rape and two of attempted rape.
In order to bring Harris to
justice, prosecutors used a little-known section of legislation giving English
courts jurisdiction to try offences carried out by Britons abroad.
Harris's eight-week trial
was told that he spent 15 months in a British jail for possession of indecent
images of children following a 2009 conviction.
Jurors also heard how he had admitted six counts of
sexual assault against three teenage pupils at a school in Devon where he
taught Latin during the 1980s.
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