OFFICERS investigating allegations of historical abuse at a Hartlebury school have requisitioned two men to appear in court.

The alleged offences took place at St Gilbert’s School, in Hartlebury, during the 1960s and 1970s.

An 86-year-old man from Cambridge will face 18 charges of assaulting, ill-treating, neglecting or abandoning a child to cause unnecessary suffering or injury, two charges of assaulting a person thereby occasioning actual bodily harm, four charges of committing a serious sexual assault with a boy under 16 years of age, three charges of committing a serious sexual assault with a male under the age of 21 without consent, one charge of indecent assault on a boy under the age of 16 years and one charge of indecent assault on a man aged 16 or over.

The alleged offences were committed against 18 males in the 1960s and 1970s.

An 86-year-old man, from Longniddry, East Lothian, will face one charge of assaulting, ill-treating, neglecting or abandoning a child to cause unnecessary suffering or injury and one charge of assaulting a person thereby occasioning them actual bodily harm.

The alleged offences were committed against one boy in the 1960s.

Both men will appear at Birmingham Magistrates Court on October 16.

The two men were arrested as part of Operation Quail – launched in September 2014 investigating alleged abuse at St Gilbert’s School dating back to the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

St Gilbert’s, which was a school for boys, no longer exists and is now residential housing.