Disgraced choirmaster who worked on Wallace and Gromit stripped of MBE over child abuse conviction

ITV News

4 days ago

A disgraced choirmaster and teacher jailed for abusing multiple children has been stripped of his MBE.
David Pickthall was sentenced to 12 years in prison last November after admitting 29 offences relating to 19 people.
The 66-year-old's crimes took place between 1980 and 2021, during which he was a choirmaster and teacher in Essex.
Pickthall, who had also worked on the 1993 Oscar-winning short Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers, was made an MBE in 2015 for services to charity and education, having raised vast sums of money for charity.
But the Cabinet Office has confirmed that Pickthall has been stripped of his honour due to his criminal conviction.
Pickthall, of Cheveley in Cambridgeshire, showed his victims pornographic material, filmed them without their consent while they stayed at his home and assaulted them when they were alone.
He also obtained indecent images of children via social media, and in the months before his arrest in 2021, Pickthall engaged in sexual communication with a 15-year-old boy on the messaging app Telegram.
The disgraced music teacher was said to have started by tickling his young victims before escalating to more serious abuse in behaviour described as 'predatory'.
Numerous victims of Pickthall read their victim impact statements during his sentencing at Chelmsford Crown Court.
One victim told the court they had been a 'very happy child' before Pickthall had abused them. They said they 'hero-worshipped' Pickthall and his musical ability.
Another said the regularity of abuse had become normal to them, adding: 'Over the course of weeks, months and years being assaulted by Pickthall became my normal. I hated myself and my life and worst of all I did not know how to make it stop.'
Judge Mary Loram KC told the survivors "the shame is not yours" and that Pickthall was "seen to be too powerful to be challenged" and had "adapted [his] offending as the technology emerged".
Addressing the predator, she said: "You relied on your good character to manipulate others; to ensure parents trusted you and children felt powerless in the face of your reputation."
Pickthall is serving a 12-year prison sentence with a further four on extended licence. He had admitted 29 offences – 16 counts of indecent assault, 10 counts of voyeurism, and three counts of making an indecent image of a child.