A MAN has appeared in court charged with historic child sex offences while working as a gap year student at a leading boys’ boarding school.

David Alexander Schiller worked at Aysgarth School, near Bedale, between September 1, 2001 and July 30, 2002 when the alleged abuse took place.

Northallerton Magistrates’ Court heard Schiller, 34, is charged with five counts of abuse, including between September 1, 2001 and April 30, 2002 at Aysgarth School, of indecently assaulting an 11-year-old by touching him, gross indecency with a boy aged under 16 in the same period and location, by performing a sex act.

Other charges relate to an indecent assault and on boy under the age of 14 and gross indecency with a boy aged under 16 between May 1, 2002 and July 20, 2002, in North Yorkshire.

He is also charged with a indecent assault on a boy aged under 14, by getting the boy to touch him, between May 1, 2002 and July 30, 2002 in North Yorkshire. Schiller, now living in Camden, London, pleaded not guilty to all five charges.

Aysgarth School, in Newton-le-Willows, where boarders aged eight to 13 are charged more than £22,000-a-year, is described on its website as one of the leading prep schools in the country, where “boys can be boys”.

It adds: “As the only all-boys boarding Prep School in the north of Britain, Aysgarth sends more boys to selective schools such as Eton, Harrow, Winchester and Radley than any other school in the north as well as to senior schools nearby.

“We aim to stretch every boy to make the most of their abilities in small groups, whatever the activity.”

In its entry about Aysgarth School, which has about 150 pupils, the 2017 Tatler Schools guide states: “Entry is non-selective (get that name down at birth) and learning fun, with more than 50 activities, from scuba diving to origami to keep these muddy-kneed, national-prep-school cross-country champs busy.”

Schiller was granted conditional bail to not have unsupervised contact with children, and will appear at Teesside Crown Court on April 18.