Police investigating allegations of sexual abuse of pupils at Carmel College, the now closed Jewish public school, have made an arrest, the JC has learned.

Thames Valley Police said that a 76-year-old man from Essex had been arrested and had been released on bail until March 24 this year.

Last March, Thames Valley confirmed that it had launched an investigation into claims of sexual abuse of students by at least two former members of staff at the Orthodox boarding school at Wallingford outside Oxford between the 1970s and 1990s.

Opened in 1948, Carmel taught 350 pupils in its heyday in the 1970s. By the time of its closure, student numbers had dropped below 200 at the “Jewish Eton”, whose annual fees at £14,000 made it one of the UK’s most expensive schools.