Paedophile colleague of Jo Yeates murder suspect abused boy in flat - Mirror.co.uk

A PAEDOPHILE colleague of murder suspect Chris Jefferies abused a young boy at the flat where Jo lived.

Fellow public school teacher Stephen Johnston used to live below Jefferies in Flat 1 of the building in Bristol.

And from 1991 to 1994, Johnston sexually abused a pupil in the apartment Jo disappeared from. After Johnston's arrest, police found hundreds of photographs of boys' naked bottoms taken in the apartment.

Bachelor Johnston, now 57, was jailed for seven years in March 2008 after being found guilty of six sex offences and is currently in Dartmoor prison.

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Both Johnston and Jefferies – who bought the flat when the paedophile moved to live with his mother in Sturminster Newton, Dorset, in 1999 – taught at private school Clifton College at the time of the offences, although there is no suggestion Jefferies was involved.

French master Johnston had befriended the pupil, then aged just 11, and the boy visited the flat to watch videos, with promises of alcohol and cannabis. But the child and other young boys were shown pornographic videos and the relationship became a sexual one, which continued after both the victim and Johnston had left the school, Bristol crown court was told.

Sentencing him, Judge David Ticehurst said Johnston – who also kept a pair of boy's trunks sealed in a bag for more than 12 years – was a disgrace to the teaching profession, telling him: "You have destroyed a young man's childhood."