Paedophile teacher Neil Futcher sentenced to 11 years jail for raping boys

FORMER Trinity Grammar School teacher Neil Futcher, 69, has been jailed for at least 11 years for raping boys - and one of the victims shouted abuse as he was sentenced today.

A FORMER teacher who worked at some of the state’s most prestigious schools has been jailed for at least 11 years after years of raping and sexually assaulting boys.

To shouts of “hope you die in there Futcher you pig you paedophile” from one of his victims, former Trinity Grammar School teacher Neil Futcher, 69, was jailed for a maximum of 18 years and four months in the Sydney District Court.

But a court stuff-up robbed his six victims of looking him in the eye as justice was finally meted out.

Former teacher and paedophile Neil Albert Futcher (pictured here in August last year) has been jailed. Picture: Toby Mann

An administrative problem led to Futcher not being brought from Nowra jail to court for his sentencing, which instead had to be done via videolink.

“That was a big disappointment,” one of his victims, Rob Anderson, 53, who has consented to his identity being known, said outside court.

However, he said the lengthy jail term, which had to be imposed based on sentencing practices at the time of the offences from 1974 to 1981, was “amazing”.

Disgraced former Trinity Grammar teacher Neil Futcher pictured with students in 1974.

The hatred from a packed public gallery had been palpable when he last appeared for lawyers to make submissions on his sentence while his victims, who were aged between 11 and 15, sobbed in court when a jury convicted him on all 22 counts in September last year.

The abuse happened when Futcher worked as a teacher at Trinity Grammar and taught swimming at Pymble.

He had previously taught at Sydney Grammar School and was also boarding master at Knox Grammar School.

Neil Futcher used to teach at Trinity Grammar School.

Judge Jennie Girdham, one of two new judges whose work will exclusively be child sexual assault, said he had been a predator, his offending was sustained and was “born of his sexual gratification”.

She praised the courage of the men in coming forward.

The court heard Mr Anderson had first reported the abuse to police in 1990 — but there was no investigation. He again reported it in 1997 but charges were not laid until after he gave evidence to the child sex abuse royal commission.

Futcher had shown some of the boys porn movies and magazines and the abuse happened in his Drummoyne unit, the back of his red Escort panel van and a cubicle at Freshwater Surf Life Saving Club.

He threatened some of his victims with harm and exposure if they reported him and even in 2015, “begged” one of them to forget about it.