Music teachers have defended using educational books written by a convicted paedophile, saying that many famed composers had questionable private lives.

Brian Davey was imprisoned for 13 years for attempted rape, indecent assaults and indecency against girls in what a judge called “the worst case of child abuse it’s possible to imagine”.

His stepdaughter, Antoinette Lyons, one of his victims, has called on a sheet music agency to stop selling his recorder manuals to schools. But some teachers are determined to continue using his influential books and arrangements, some of which are listed as set pieces by an examining board.

The dilemma has reignited the question about whether individuals’ impressive works and art can be separated from their deplorable deeds. In an impassioned entry on a forum run by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, one female teacher recalls the questionable private lives of musicians down the ages.

“Does that mean that we should also refuse to teach anything written by Wagner (antiSemitic), Schubert (possible paedophile), Richard Strauss (member of the Nazi party), J. S. Bach (spent time in prison for drunk and disorderly behaviour), Michael Tippett (joined the Communist party) or Gesualdo (killed the king when he discovered the king in bed with Mrs Gesualdo) because we dispprove of their actions?” she wrote.

“By the same token, do we boycott Chinese instruments because of China’s appalling human rights record?”

Another teacher asked if they now had to stop listening to recordings by Robert King, the celebrated orchestra conductor who was jailed in June for indecently assaulting his protégés.

Davey, jailed last year aged 67 for molesting ten girls, used his role as a music teacher and leader of a recorder group to gain access to victims in the 1970s and 1980s. He molested pupils as he played the piano in front of a class of children, tried to rape a girl of nine in the staff room and cornered girls in cupboards. One of his victims was aged four.

But he was also the author of books which have become standards for music teachers: the four-part series Recorder Playing. Mrs Lyons said: “Brian Davey wrote fantastic music books. In my opinion they were written with one aim – to get to children, which is why I find it so hard to accept they are still used with children. I think it’s totally inappropriate to use them in schools. Are you happy to use a book written for children by a predatory paedophile? I don’t think that’s morally acceptable.”

She called on Music Exchange, a Manchester business which distributes sheet music and manuals, to stop selling her abuser’s works.

“As far as I know, this company is the only distributor of these books,” she said. “They say they’ve got a contract with a publisher. I say they’ve got a contract with a paedophile.”

Gerald Burns, a director of Music Exchange, said: “When we did this deal many years ago, we didn’t know anything about this court case. If someone had said, ‘I’m going to get banged up for 13 years, do you want to do my book?’ the answer would’ve probably been ‘No’.” He said that there was nothing untoward about the books and they were highly regarded.

A music teachers’ forum shows how highly regarded Davey’s recorder books are. One teacher said: “The man is being punished for his crimes, why punish him further? If you find the music is best for your needs then why change?”

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said that it was up to individual schools to decide which books were used in lessons.

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