A TEACHER and leading figure in British fencing, who repeatedly molested a 12-year-old Dagenham pupil, was jailed for six years yesterday (Thurs).Barry Clark, 61, who helps pick the British women s team, performed sex acts with the girl in his car.He gr

A TEACHER and leading figure in British fencing, who repeatedly molested a 12-year-old Dagenham pupil, was jailed for six years yesterday (Thurs).

Barry Clark, 61, who helps pick the British women's team, performed sex acts with the girl in his car.

He groped her at school and simulated sex with the teenage in his marital bed in Felixstowe.

Snaresbrook Crown Court heard the history teacher preyed on the youngster during a four-year ordeal.

Judge Simon Freeland QC said: "This represented a grose abuse of trust over a long period by a trusted teacher.

"It was a progressive course of the most serious indecent assaults against a vulnerable and young schoolgirl who was aged at the material times between 12, perhaps rising to 15 or 16."

Clark was also banned from working with children and ordered to sign the sex offenders' register for life.

His wife Jos continued to plead her husband's innocence from the public gallery.

A jury convicted him of eight charges of indecent assault between 1992 and 1996 last month.

He was cleared of one count of indecent assault that was charged as a "specimen count".

In court, Clark denied molesting the girl, telling jurors she had had a crush on him.