Andrew Soper, 74, fled to Kosovo with £182,000 from the Vatican bank in a bid to avoid prosecution for molesting boys at fee-paying St Benedict’s School in Ealing, west London.

The former Ealing Abbot, known as Father Laurence, was extradited to face 19 charges of indecent assault and buggery against 10 former pupils in the 1970s and 80s.

A jury at the Old Bailey deliberated for 14 hours to find him guilty of all charges by a majority of 10 to two.

There were gasps in the public gallery as the verdicts were delivered while Soper stood in the dock impassively.

Judge Anthony Bate remanded Soper in custody to be sentenced on Tuesday December 19.

The scandal-hit school counts former Conservative chairman Lord Patten and entertainer Julian Clary among its old boys and currently charges fees of around £5,000 a term.

It had come under scrutiny in the past, with both violence and sexual abuse by the adults in charge said to be “prevalent”.

Prosecutor Gillian Etherton QC told how the victims were subjected to sadistic beatings by Soper for “fake reasons”.

They included kicking a football “in the wrong direction”, “failing to use double margins”, and “using the (wrong) staircase”, leading to a caning and a sexual assault, she said.

She added: “It is the prosecution case that ‘punishments’ as described by the complainants in this case were carried out by Soper in entirely inappropriate ways and circumstances and on many occasions with what can only have been sexual…