A HIGH Court judge has cut six months off the four-and-a-half-year sentence she imposed on a retired school headmaster who sexually abused two girls.

Simon Moody, said by Worcestershire County Council to have been in charge at Wichenford Primary, near Worcester, from 1974 to 1976, was given concurrent sentences of three years and two-and-a-half years for his abuse of the girls, one in the 1990’s and one in the 1980’s.

When he was jailed at Warwick Crown Court, Moody, 71, of Elgar Avenue, Malvern, was also given a consecutive 18-month sentence for making indecent images of children.

But, after considering her sentences, Justice Dame Julia Macur said she believed she had followed the wrong guideline over the three-year sentence.

She reduced the three-year term to two-and-a-half, but left the other sentences the same. Moody was also told to sign the sex offender register.