A FORMER headmaster who sexually assaulted two boys starts a jail sentence today after the police appealed against an original sentence of probation.

Three judges at the Court of Appeal in London ruled that the three-year community rehabilitation order that 66-year-old Jeffrey Carney was given at Reading Crown Court in June was "unduly lenient" and substituted a prison sentence of 15 months.

Carney, of Burney Bit, Pamber Heath, was not in court to hear the sentence, but the judges ordered that he surrender to Basingstoke police station by noon today.

Church-going Carney, who was head of St Sebastian's Church of England Primary School, in Wokingham, for 14 years, had pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting two young boys, one from the age of 12 and the other when he was 15. He admitted two charges of indecent assault on the first boy in the 1970s and one assault on the second boy in the 1990s.

Richard Horwell, appealing on behalf of the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, told the Appeal Court that the first victim had been "robbed of his childhood" and his life had been ruined by Carney.

"The aggravating features are the gross breach of trust, the considerable impact on the first victim and that the abuse continued for a number of years," said Mr Horwell. "It is submitted that the sentence did not protect the interests of the victim and neither did it have the element of deterrence for others."

However, Michael Selfe, representing Carney, claimed that the effects of the abuse on the first boy had been exaggerated. He agreed the sentence was lenient, but not unduly so. He said that Carney, who retired in 1997, was a man of previously "impeccable character" and the court had been shown many character references for him. There were no allegations that he had ever abused any of his pupils and he was said to pose a very low risk of re-offending.

Lord Justice Kay, who was sitting with Mr Justice Poole and Mr Justice Treacy, questioned whether those giving references had been told the full details of the offences. "What he did to this (first) boy was dreadful," Lord Justice Kay told Mr Selfe. "Right-minded people would have to reappraise any views of this man."

Giving the court's decision, Lord Justice Kay said the offences against the first boy were by far the most serious.

"They represented a prolonged course of serious sexual misconduct against a boy starting when he was just 12," added the judge.

He rejected defence arguments that no great harm had been done to the boy.

"To be abused by someone viewed so highly in the community raised a substantial risk of emotional damage that would blight his later life," he said.

"The court has a wider responsibility in dealing with cases of this kind to do all that it can to deter others from running the risk of serious emotional harm to a child - and, on any view, Carney did just that."

Mr Justice Kay said the attack on the second boy, although it was not so grave, showed that Carney had not put his offending behind him after the first boy's ordeal and "added to the overall seriousness of the case".

Imposing the prison sentence, the judge said that Carney should have been given a sentence of two-and-a-half years - but making allowance for the fact that he was facing the double jeopardy of being sentenced for a second time, his new sentence would be fixed at only 15 months.

The judge added that the new jail term, coupled with a ban on Carney working with children, "provided adequate protection to the public".

At Carney's original appearance at Reading Crown Court in June, the court heard how the offences against the first victim had begun with him playing tickling games and writing words on the boy's body that the boy then had to guess. The touching had then progressed to the child's genitals. It had ceased at Carney's instigation when the boy reached 16.

Carney had abused the second boy by putting his hand down the boy's trousers when he was 15.