Former Deputy Head Teacher Pleads Guilty to Child Abuse

Matthew Smith, 34, a former deputy head teacher at Thomas's Battersea, a prominent London school previously attended by royals, has pleaded guilty to 22 charges related to child sexual abuse. Smith, who briefly worked at the £20,000-a-year school, admitted to instructing teenagers in India online to abuse younger children while he was working in Nepal.

Smith, who appeared at Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday, will be sentenced on August 4. He was arrested in November 2022 after investigators discovered he had been sharing abuse material on the dark web while in Nepal. At the time of his arrest, he was online speaking to a boy in India, asking him to send sexual images of a younger child in exchange for money.

Investigators recovered over 120,000 indecent images of children from Smith's devices. They determined that Smith had paid the boy and another teenager in India £65,398 to abuse children over five years.

Smith worked in orphanages and non-governmental organizations in India from 2007 to 2014 before moving to Nepal, where he taught at Kathmandu's British School. He returned to London in July 2022 and started working at Thomas's Battersea. His employment was terminated two months later when the charges against him were made public.

Investigators found that Smith instructed the young men through chat logs to perform sexual acts on boys and sent them images and videos as examples of what he wanted in return. He also advised one of them on how to befriend children and build their trust to abuse them.

Information about potential offenses committed by Smith against children while in India has been shared with law enforcement partners. There is no evidence suggesting he committed offenses against children in Nepal or Britain.

Claire Brinton, a specialist in the Organized Child Sexual Abuse Unit of the Crown Prosecution Service, described Smith's crimes as "particularly disturbing" given his role as a primary school teacher. "Thousands of images and videos were recovered from his devices which showed an appalling catalogue of sexual abuse being perpetrated on children," she said.

A Thomas's Battersea spokesperson expressed shock and disgust at Smith's actions and thanked investigators for bringing him to justice. The school stated that Smith's employment was terminated soon after they learned of the charges in November.