Christopher Barker was cleared of five sex assault charges

A jury at Mold Crown Court cleared 45-year-old Christopher Barker, head of Ysgol Tan Y Fron in Wrexham, of five sexual molestation charges.

Outside the court he said: "It's been nine months of hell for me and my family. I just want to go home now."

Wrexham Council said Mr Barker would remain suspended from his post pending an investigation into the allegations.

Mr Barker, of Dodleston, near Chester, had denied throughout the five-day trial that anything improper had happened.

He told the court he had tried to help the boy who had behavioural problems, and that he was a tactile person with adults and children.

Chris simply wishes to put the stress and trauma of the past nine months behind him and for life to return to normal Mr Barker's solicitor, John Gittins

Mr Barker, a teacher for 20 years and the head for the last nine, denied that he had touched the boy indecently five times, including in his own bed on an overnight school trip.

The prosecution had alleged that Mr Barker had developed "an unusually close and affectionate" relationship with the boy.

In his closing speech, prosecutor John Philpotts claimed the boy lacked the maturity and sophistication to lie about the allegations in such detail and referred to the fact that three teachers at the school had given evidence against the head.

But Andrew Jebb, defending Mr Barker, told the jury that the evidence showed that the boy had lied.

The defendant, he said, was a man of excellent character.

'Reputation'

Following the not guilty verdict the judge, Mr Recorder Anthony O'Toole, thanked the jury and said that it had been a difficult and worrying case.

"There was a man's reputation at stake, a professional man," he said.

Mr Barker's solicitor, John Gittins, read a statement outside court.

It read: "Chris Barker's paramount concerns have always been for the development of the school and the well-being of the pupils, whom he feels privileged to have taught.

"It has been a huge disappointment to him that since January of this year he has been unable to continue his work to further his aims within the school.

"It is now to be hoped that today's acquittal will enable him to return quickly to the profession he loves and to which he has dedicated his life.

"At this time Chris simply wishes to put the stress and trauma of the past nine months behind him and for life to return to normal."

Hywyn Williams, chief learning and achievement officer at Wrexham Council, said Mr Barker remained suspended from his post.

He said an investigation into the allegations would be carried by an independent person to be appointed by the governors of the school.