East Lothian crime: Music teacher Peter Antonelli has MBE revoked after sexual offences conviction

One victim said he took pictures of her and told her to go on the pill

A music teacher who was convicted of raping and sexually abusing school pupils has had his MBE revoked.

Peter Antonelli was jailed for eight years in 2021 after a High Court jury found him guilty of sexual offences against six of his former pupils at schools in East Lothian. Antonelli, 66, was said by a judge to have left his victims with “considerable and lasting emotional damage” due to the shocking abuse he inflicted on them between 1980 and 2005.

The once-highly-respected piano teacher was awarded an MBE for services to musical education in the New Year's Honours list at the end of 2004. But following his conviction a petition was launched to have the award “revoked and taken away”. Now it has been announced in the London Gazette this week the prestigious award has been “cancelled and annulled” with immediate effect.

Peter Antonelli was jailed for eight years in 2021

The announcement read: “The King has directed that the appointment of Peter John Antonelli to be a Member of the Civil Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, dated 31 December 2004, shall be cancelled and annulled and that his name shall be erased from the Register of the said Order.”

Antonelli taught children how to play the piano at several schools in East Lothian and the High Court in Edinburgh was told he had studied at the prestigious Royal College of Music in London before becoming a teacher. One of the victims who gave evidence against him said Antonelli was highly respected in the East Lothian area and that his music had been played on the radio.

Another woman - now in her 50s - told the court how Antonelli called her PB, which stood for Perfect Bum, and that he took indecent photographs of her. She said that some of the photos showed her “private parts” and that Antonelli became “aroused” when he took the sordid snaps.

She told the court that Antonelli made her perform sex acts on him and made her to go on the pill when she turned 16 because he didn’t want to get her pregnant. The woman also told the court that Antonelli, of Gullane, East Lothian, used “controlling behaviour” towards her by repeatedly phoning and following her.