Woodford Green water fetish music teacher jailed for seven years

A MUSIC teacher who submerged a pupil in a bath to satisfy his fetish for watching girls breathe underwater has been jailed for seven years.

The youngster 73-year-old Michael Crombie, of Monkhams Avenue, Woodford Green, ducked in his bathtub was one of nine schoolgirls he molested during private “music lessons”.

The choir leader made eight films of his perverted exploits including a “highlights tape” of the naked girl struggling for air as he holds her down.

Crombie encouraged the young recorder player, who was aged between 10 and 12 at the time, to perform the bizarre practice known as aquaphilia by posing as a woman journalist from a music magazine.

Jailing Crombie at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Tuesday, judge Inigo Bing said: “I agree with the observations of the author of the pre-sentence report that you have an underlying interest in young pre and post-pubertal female children, allied with your fetish of aquaphilia.

“The offences were further aggravated by the fact that you filmed the offences taking place.

“Your principal victim has to live with the indignity and hurt of knowing that for months and years afterwards you got sexual satisfaction from watching her naked in your bath and you assaulting her.”

He added: “All your victims gave their accounts with composure and all were courageous in coming forward and reporting your activities.”

Crombie, who was convicted last month of 26 counts of indecent assault, seven counts of making indecent images of a child and possessing indecent images of a child, was ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for life and obey a sexual offences prevention order, banning him from unsupervised contact with children.

Judge Bing also ruled Crombie had “considerable assets” and ordered a recovery of defence costs of �30,000.