A former Pembrokeshire headteacher has failed in a bid to overturn convictions for sexual assault.

David Bryan Thorley, 57, was convicted in July 2009 of nine sexual assaults in relation to several children. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

Last Thursday, Thorley went to London’s Appeal Court in an effort to have the convictions quashed.

His QC, Patrick Harrington claimed there were serious question marks over the fairness of his trial and whether the judge should have allowed the trial to proceed.

But Mrs Justice Swift, sitting with Lord Justice Dyson and Mrs Justice Sharp, said that while Thorley’s legal team had made the ‘tragedy’ of the convictions to Thorley clear, the court “had found nothing in the evidence to suggest that his convictions are unsafe.”

The appeal was dismissed and Thorley, of Bryn Heulog, Heol Penlanffos, Carmarthen, was returned to prison.