Trial of Derrick Cooper enters fifth week
The former owner of a South Cumbria residential school has insisted he did not commit a strong of alleged assaults or cruelty offences against pupils.
Seventy-seven-year-old Derrick Cooper, who formerly ran Underley Hall School, near Kirkby Lonsdale, is on trial at Carlisle Crown Court.
Cooper denies six assault charges and two child cruelty allegations, all dating back to the 1970/80s when he was in joint, and later, sole charge.
Yesterday he spent almost two-and-a-half hours giving evidence from the witness box.
Cooper, now of Hillberry Green, Douglas, Isle of Man, denied each and every allegation - and insisted he didn't even remember two of the seven ex-students who had accused him.
Asked whether he was involved in the repeated 'kicking and slapping' of one boy, Cooper replied: 'It didn't happen'.
And asked whether he had pulled the legs of an injured pupil who suffered multiple breaks falling from a first floor window ledge, the former owner told jurors: 'Oh no. Good lord, no'.
Mr Wright had earlier said to jurors:
'We say Derrick Cooper has, for whatever unfathomable reason, been falsely accused'.
The trial, which is in its fifth week, continues.
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