Late Queen's Former Verger: "Satan In Disguise"

The late Queen’s former verger, who molested one Southwark Cathedral chorister and another boy at a boarding school, has been described in court as “Satan in disguise.”

Clive McCleester, 77, once served at Windsor Castle’s St. George’s Chapel and oversaw visitors to the Queen Mother’s tomb and helped organise royal funerals. 

McCleester, who lives in the Grade I-listed Hospital of St. Cross almshouse in St. Cross Road, Winchester was remanded in custody to be sentenced at Inner London Crown Court.

“It is my responsibility to pass a significant sentence of imprisonment on you,” Judge Jane Rowley told him. “I need to reflect on the harrowing evidence I have heard.”

The surviving victim and relatives of the deceased complainant packed the courtroom during an emotionally-charged hearing in which live impact statements were read out.

McCleester pleaded guilty to three counts of indecently assaulting a now-deceased victim on up to 100 occasions between January 1, 1968 and December 18, 1970.

Those counts reflect his time employed as a child welfare officer at Tylney Hall School, Hampshire between 1960 and 1971 before moving on to work at a children’s home.

McCleester lived at the boarding school in his own private residence, with a particular role in looking after the 13 year-old victim after the death of the boy’s grandmother.

After a life of drink and drug abuse to blank-out the memories of McCleester, the victim suffered a massive panic attack when police told him they were investigating the defendant and he suffered a fatal heart attack in August, 2020.

McCleester pleaded guilty to four counts of indecently assaulting the Southwark Cathedral victim between July 28, 1986 and July 27, 1987 and three counts of indecency with a child between the same dates.

This victim was a 13 year-old Southwark Cathedral choirboy, abused at McCleester’s flat within the vicarage.

Prosecutor Catherine Donnelly told the court: “ Both complainants were sexually abused when they were young boys. Over the years he took advantage of his role to sexually abuse young boys.”

In his child welfare role McCleester had particular responsibility for the now-deceased victim, but the sexual abuse began on the same day as the funeral of the young boy’s grandmother.

“He took the boy for a walk in the wooded area of the school grounds.”

There, intimate sexual abuse occurred, continuing in the defendant’s room, where he would strip the boy and molest him - also striking during bath time - two or three times a week.

In a victim impact statement the dead victim’s sister told the court: “He is Satan in disguise and deserves to go to hell. We hope he gets a long jail sentence and rots in jail. For me this man is pure evil.”

The Southwark Cathedral choirboy was invited by McCleester to his accommodation with the promise of Chinese takeaways, plied with wine and sexually abused.

He was also stripped naked and intimately molested by McCleester, who took him to a gay shop and bought him black leather underwear and a skin-tight fishnet vest.

As an adult he even helped McCleester beat a similar charge in 2003, giving evidence at Inner London Crown Court, where the defendant was cleared of abusing another Southwark Cathedral choirboy.

Now 48 years-old the victim told the court in his impact statement: “He fully exploited me for his sexual gratification. He has got away with his vile acts his whole life.”