A teacher at a prominent Sydney high school facing almost 70 child sex charges has been found dead in a backyard swimming pool.

William Charles Lucan-Roberts was to have appeared in Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday accused of molesting a series of 12 to 16-year-old boys over four decades while employed at Sydney Boys High School.

The body of the 61-year-old language master was discovered at a house in exclusive Point Piper, shortly after 3pm (AEDT) on Saturday, police sources said today.

It is believed a two-line suicide note was also found at the Wentworth Place address, believed to be the home of a friend.

'A report is being prepared for the coroner but the death is not regarded as suspicious at this stage,' a police spokeswoman told AAP.

Lucan-Roberts was arrested by Child Protection Enforcement Agency (CPEA) detectives on December 15 last year following a 15-month investigation.

The next day a magistrate was told he had been teaching at a high-profile boys school for some 35 years.

In that time, solicitor Michael Marx told the court, his client had taught 5,000 pupils and was held in high regard by administrators at the school despite them being aware he was under investigation.

However, the most recent offence with which Lucan-Roberts had been charged, the indecent assault of a 14-year-old boy, was alleged to have occurred last August - well after he himself knew he was under suspicion.

He had been removed from face-to-face teaching duties by education authorities the previous year, according to police.

At the time, he was charged with 22 counts of indecent assault, five of buggery, two of attempted buggery, two of having homosexual intercourse with a student, inciting a male to commit an indecent act and aggravated indecent assault.

He was also purported to have kidnapped a 14-year-old boy.

Each of the assaults were said to have been perpetrated at locations in Sydney's wealthy east including Centennial Park, Bellevue Hill and Randwick, between 1964 and 1999.

At two subsequent court appearances he was charged with an additional 30 matters, bring the total number of alleged offences to 67.

In a raid on Lucan-Roberts' Randwick home on the morning of his arrest, police are said to have seized several incriminating videos, documents and photographs.

At the time of his death, he had been granted $100,000 bail.

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