A MONK who abused boys as young as eight while he was a master at a top public school was today starting a two-year jail sentence.

Father Piers Henry Grant-Ferris, 72, had admitted 20 indecent assaults on 15 boys during the ten years in the 1960s and 1970s he was head of Year 2 at Gilling Castle, the preparatory school of Ampleforth College.

Grant-Ferris, who is a member of the monastic community at Ampleforth Abbey, near Helmsley, was also put on the sex offenders' register for ten years and banned from working with children indefinitely.

After the hearing at Leeds Crown Court, Detective Superintendent Barry Honeysett, who headed the inquiry into Grant-Ferris, said it was part of a broader investigation which lasted for two years and involved contact with more than 500 former pupils at the school.

He said: "The operation at Ampleforth has now ended."

Father Cuthbert Madden, Abbot of Ampleforth, said the offences committed by Grant-Ferris were "a betrayal of his responsibilities as a monk, as a teacher and as an adult member of society".

Updated: 10:01 Friday, January 27, 2006