Former child protection officer at Harrogate district private school jailed for sexual assault

A former Harrogate district school child protection officer has been jailed for 16 years after being found guilty of multiple charges of sexual assault against 20 victims.

Alexander Ralls, 47, of Dunstable, Bedfordshire, appeared at Bradford Crown Court for sentencing today after he was found guilty of 31 charges of sexual assault.

He was also convicted of 10 charges of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent, two charges of assault by penetration and one charge of sexual assault of a child under 13.

Ralls, a former charity boss and former deputy head of boarding at fee-paying Queen Ethelburga’s School near Harrogate, was also made subject of a sexual harm prevention order.

The court heard how, while working as a child protection officer and safeguarding lead, Ralls used his position of trust to exploit his victims, claiming to care for them and provide them with medical treatment while actually sexually assaulting them.

Speaking after sentencing today, investigating officer detective constable Suzanne Hall from the North Yorkshire Police Non-Recent Abuse Investigation Team said:

“This was a complex and disturbing case where Ralls as a person in a position of trust, used his role to coerce and influence the young people he should have been caring for into a vulnerable position, which he then exploited for his own sexual gratification.

“The extent of his offending was staggering and the fact that he continued to use the same excuse of providing medical care to carry out his sickening actions, shows his utter arrogance towards and contempt of his victims. Not once has he taken any responsibility for his actions, pleading not guilty to all the charges, meaning his victims had to face a gruelling seven-week court process.

“I’d like to thank the victims for their enormous bravery in coming forward and giving their accounts. I know how difficult and traumatic that was for them. I hope the sentence handed to Ralls today helps them move on from such an upsetting period in their lives.

“I hope the sentence also gives other victims of non-recent abuse confidence to come forward and seek help and support. It doesn’t matter how long ago you may have experienced abuse, we understand the damaging effects it can have and that people can feel those effects throughout their life.

“If you choose to report the incident to police, we will listen and believe you and we will do everything we can to put those responsible in front of the courts.”

Read more:

 

Former deputy head of boarding at Harrogate district private school guilty of 43 sex offences against pupils

WARNING: This story contains details of sexual offences that some people may find upsetting.

A former deputy head of boarding and charity boss at a private school in the Harrogate district has been found guilty of more than 40 sexual offences against female pupils.

Alexander Charles Ralls, 47, was also a deputy child protection officer at Queen Ethelburga’s School at the time of the offences.

He was accused of sexually abusing 20 girls over a three-year period and charged with 48 separate offences including 37 sexual assaults and 10 counts of causing a child to engage in sexual activity. He denied all the allegations. 

Yesterday, a jury found him guilty of all but four of the offences following a four-week trial at Bradford Crown Court. 

Mr Hampton said:

“The defendant had a sexual interest in pre-pubescent and adolescent children and teenagers.

“He had the opportunity to pursue that interest and commit the offences because of who he was and the job he held.

“Alexander Charles Ralls was a fraud. He would deceive the girls into believing that his touching of them, or other activity, was a necessary and legitimate medical procedure. In fact, it was not. 

“His actions were driven… by his own sexual motivation and interest. He is a fraud not only in the manner in which he committed the offences; he is a fraud in the way in which he presented himself to the outside world.”

Mr Hampton said that before the offences came to light, Ralls, who ran his own charity, was regarded as a “man of unquestionable good, if not impeccable, character”.

He was deputy head of boarding for four years and, up until his dismissal in December 2015, was the school’s deputy designated safeguarding officer. 

Ralls, who lived in a flat in a female boarding house on the school premises, was also a qualified first aider at Queen Ethelburga’s, known colloquially as ‘QE’. 

He ran his own charity called Affecting Real Change (ARC) which “advanced the education and training of children, young people and adults”. 

Complaints over Ralls’s behaviour

In November 2015, one of the victims made a complaint to the school about Ralls’s behaviour.

Ralls was suspended pending an investigation which found he had allowed pupils into his private quarters at Ethelburga’s which was against school policy. He was ultimately dismissed for “gross misconduct and inappropriate behaviour”.

The girl’s mother was told by the school that the matter would be passed on to the “relevant authorities”, but “nothing more seemed to come of matters” until a separate complaint was made to police by another child.

Police launched an investigation when more girls, now adults, spoke to officers about Ralls’s predatory and “weird” behaviour.

One of the abused girls said that “everyone loved Mr Ralls at that time” and that was the reason they didn’t initially make a complaint.

Read more:

The jury found Ralls guilty of 43 of the 47 charges involving almost all the 20 girls who made complaints. He will be sentenced on July 28. 

The conviction comes after the school’s former owner and ex-chairman of governors Brian Martin was jailed for more than three years in 2021 for sexually abusing two pupils. 

The “predatory paedophile”, who was 71 years old at the time of his trial at Leeds Crown Court, was convicted of indecently assaulting one pupil and sexually assaulting another.

Martin, of Ferrensby, Knaresborough, who had bought Queen Ethelburga’s and moved it from Harrogate to Thorpe Underwood, was cleared of six other child-sexual-abuse allegations at a previous trial in 2018.