Historical sexual predation in school; lack of action

[Aspergallus]

Hi all,

I am really not sure if this is the right area of the forum for this but looking for thoughts and advice.

In case anyone doesn't want to read further, this is about a convicted (not alleged) paedophile who was a music teacher in my high school which I attended from 1988-1994, and the lack of any response taken at the time to numerous reported incidents. I was not abused by this individual.

So background...

Around 1987/88 I was finishing up primary school aged 11. I was keenly into playing my clarinet, it was my only real hobby. I had no intention of giving up or stopping -I was pretty much an introverted geek, no sporting ability, and being in the school band was my main social activity.

in preparing for high school, there was a lot of gossip and chat about the music teacher. Essentially pre-teen gossip and scare-mongering -don't go in the cupboard with him, he'll touch you up, he touched x's breast, he had sex with y etc etc. Absolutely common knowledge among children and I remember mentioning it to my music teacher. I was probably vague -"scared" of the new music teacher. She seemed to know, and told me just to wait and see or something equally vague.

I got to high school, started music classes within the standard timetable, but didn't initially join the band or sign up for lunchtime clarinet practice (or anything optional involving music at all).

Predictably, he was an awful, creepy man. He'd start a class playing something on recorder and seemed to pick girls out one by one to go into the "music room"; a cupboard effectively, so that he could hear them properly and rate/grade their ability. I would be rigid with fear whenever this happened to me. I remember he tried to be chatty, talk about my clarinet but I just couldn't chat back and after a couple of visits I was never singled out again and never had any further discussion about continuing with clarinet at high school and because of who he was, I was completely relieved about that. I stopped playing. (I kind of lost any real social connection then and had a pretty miserable high school experience after that, but that's probably more about me). Anyway, it has always kind of bugged me how that all happened. Every so often I remember how I just stopped, and why, and feel really angry.

The thing is, and the point of my post really, is that everyone knew. Everyone from Head Teacher, to Deputy Head, to every other teacher in the school. Cheeky high school students, especially the older ones, would sing songs about him. We were aware that the other teachers did not welcome him into the staff room -he lunched on his own. It was never a secret. I moved away for uni, work etc but still have contacts in the area. I heard that young women who went back to the school as trainee teachers were told to stay away from him, not be in a room alone with him, by the long standing teachers at the school.

He was convicted in 2018. One of the accusers spoke with the news of how everyone knew, how she'd reported it in the 80s to the HT and deputy and nothing happened. He got a pretty short sentence and was released fairly recently.

I know that this did not happen to me, and this isn't my story really...but it really pisses me off that a whole school of adults allowed this to happen, didn't take the complaints of girls seriously, allowed cohorts and cohorts of girls to live in fear of being the next victim and it took decades for any justice, despite occurring in apparent plain sight for all that time. AFAIK the complaints that led to legal action came from victims, never anyone in a position of authority.

So what am I asking?

Is this just normal/common and to be accepted and lived with?
Should the absolute neglect of professional responsibility lead to an enquiry?

I intermittently find myself really angry about it. Triggered I suppose by my own DC going through the same life stages.

Sorry that's so long.
TL:DR My high school music teacher was a predatory paeodophile. He was convicted many years after the offences despite these being known at the time. Children were not protected. Is this just life in the 80s/early 90s or serious enough to warrant an enquiry or further complaint?

I think that many decades ago (eg in 1940s/1950s) the kind of dirty old man that would grope girls was absolutely commonplace. They'd grope, nobody would say anything.

Times now have obv changed. Anyone who gropes a child can expect to be reported and hopefully end up in prison.

So the 80s was inbetween. Adults, such as the other teachers, may have been kids in the 50s and got groped and thought that it was just something that happened.

Just like the casting couch sex was "normal".

I mean it's all fucking appalling, thank fuck times have changed.

Horrible story, Op, and I'm sorry it affected your love of playing music :(

I went to a middle school and our music teacher had come from the catholic girl's school in the next town and there were loads of rumours about him cornering girls in cupboards and being chucked out of that school.

Safer Recruitment protocols now wouldn't allow a teacher to be shunted from one school to another after something like that but yes, it was a different time (I went to middle school 1987-1991).

One of my secondary school geography teachers went to school for abusing pupils but I don't have any recollection of ever being taught by him.

We had a lot predation at my school in the 80s. Several teachers dating students as well as a woodwork teacher who always wanted to talk to girls in a cupboard. Don't know for sure if the head knew, but some of the other teachers certainly did and friends who went on to become teachers said the school had a reputation for it at teacher training colleges. I don't think anyone was convicted. Looking back I can recognise attempts by some of the teachers to see which girls would be good victims. I can see how they groomed us to accept it, not that it took much grooming because this was the 80s, Benny Hill was still on TV and there were 16 years olds on Page 3 and Andrea Dunbar's autobiographical play about the impact of sexual exploitation of girls by older men was turned into an amoral feel good piece by the film industry. We were surrounded by a culture that accepted it. I'm angry about it too, looking back.

Things have changed to some extent, but probably not as much as we like to think. The Rotherham scandal, while not school based, has similarities of adults in multiple agencies who knew ignoring it.

We are having this right now in my dc school. Literally today. The school need to act all the girls are talking about it SM is aflame. So it’s not historical op.

Jesus that is depressing.

From my own experience in my own family, people do not deal with sexual abuse. They “forgive” abusers again and again to make their own lives easier and blame victims. It is much easier to do that and easy to get away with doing it.

I lost a huge amount of trust in people based on my own experiences siblings, parents, doctors, nurses, teachers all carpet sweeping sexual abuse to make their own lives easier. Always has been this way, until there is significant social change around putting expectations on those enabling abuse it will continue to be this way.

It is so depressing that it continues.

I don't consider myself unusual in any way, yet I had this experience at high school, and a lone visit to a locum GP when I was about 11 that got very weird -asking about whether I'd started my periods and wanted me to take my t-shirt off for a breast exam when I was just there for rubella vaccine having missed the school program. Then there's the random adult men shouting remarks as I walked to school -"blow job lips" was a particularly choice example. I was clearly a child, in school uniform.

It kills me to think that my 5 year old daughter might still experience this kind of crap.

On the music teacher issue -I'm toying with doing an FOI request at least, to the local authority to ask what action or investigation they've undertaken regarding past events and the handling of previous accusations and disclosures since his conviction. Particularly since one of the victims (offences in regard to her contributed to his sentence so not in doubt) has been very clear that she did report his actions to the HT and deputy.

Am I just going to make myself angrier and more frustrated?

I'm really sorry you've had these experiences. Music departments/conservatoires seem to be particularly prone to this sort of situation. I think some contributing factors are a combination of the need for one-to-one instruction, together with a dose of hero-worship, as well as the emotional vulnerability on the part of both students and teachers, which necessarily accompanies good music-making. It's very easy for feelings to get really muddled in such an intense environment, and it's very much the job of the teacher in this situation to maintain very clear professional boundaries, and to make sure that the environment is safe for the development of their students. Unfortunately, some teachers either are simply predators, or are themselves too naïve to do this part of their job properly. I think we are making some progress in identifying and stopping this sort of situation, but I've also known cases that make it clear that it's still very difficult.

I had a similar music teacher, his nickname was Randy X and there were rumors he had made a prefect pregnant. He was never convicted of anything but his creepiness was common knowledge.

I also had a technical teacher who also taught photography short courses who had piles of porn mags in his room which he claimed were for learning photography techniques. He liked to take pictures of pretty girls and would get their parent's permission to see them out of school.

I started high school in 87 so the same time as you.

I'm very glad these things would not be tolerated now.