Daily Mail
December 7, 2013
The headmistress of one of the most improved schools in the country has been charged with a string of child sex offences.
Anne Lakey, 53, chief executive of the Durham Federation, has been suspended since last December and was yesterday charged with eight allegations relating to a boy aged under 16.
The Crown Prosecution Service said Mrs Lakey faces four counts of indecent assault, two counts of gross indecency and two counts of incitement to commit gross indecency, all involving the same boy and said to have taken place between April 1988 and May 1989.
The Durham Federation includes Durham Community Business College (DCBC) and Fyndoune Community College in Sacriston, County Durham.
DCBC became a pioneer of vocational education, while Fyndoune has been named among the most improved state secondary schools in the country for each of the last three years.
The alleged victim was not a pupil at any school where Lakey, from Stanley, County Durham, has worked.
A teacher since 1982, and a member of the National Leaders of Education, a body set up to transform struggling schools, Lakey is a national pioneer in schooling.
Last year she was hailed as an example of ‘inspiring leadership’ by the chief inspector of schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw.