The trial of James Andrew Husband and Gary Dobbie

[richardb]

In crown court cases journalists cover the prosecution opening because it gives them the whole story in one go.

The evidence of individual witnesses is often less sensational and they are often unsure of what to report.

[J.R.]

The second witness was sworn to give evidence at 3.07 p.m today.

The first witness started giving evidence early on Monday morning, so a long time.

Thanks Richard. Nothing from the press at the moment.

[richardb]

I wouldn't expect anything from the press until the police interviews at the earliest.

[RemedyLaw]

I think Verisona Law went to one of the sentence hearings.

I would be interested to go but it is a bit of a trek. That won't stop me though.

We have been to a number of days during the various trials. A little manic at the moment, but hoping to attend a number of days on this to try and support those who have come forward.

[richardb]

Thanks for letting us know. It will be interesting to hear your thoughts in due course.

[J.R.]

I think Verisona Law went to one of the sentence hearings.

I would be interested to go but it is a bit of a trek. That won't stop me though.

We have been to a number of days during the various trials. A little manic at the moment, but hoping to attend a number of days on this to try and support those who have come forward.

Please keep us updated.

As stated above, the press do not seem interested at the moment, though I'm sure they will be having a field day further down the line.

[RemedyLaw]

Unsure if anybody is aware but causelist does give a brief summary of the events of each day along with the case reference which can be used to ask the court for any updates.

http://causelist.org/d/31qejnzv5m13e/

I cannot see that the trial will last six weeks unless there are 50 plus witnesses...

[J.R.]

Unsure if anybody is aware but causelist does give a brief summary of the events of each day along with the case reference which can be used to ask the court for any updates.

http://causelist.org/d/31qejnzv5m13e/

I cannot see that the trial will last six weeks unless there are 50 plus witnesses...

Reading the updates, the trial does seem to be progressing very quickly. Maybe the defence aren't putting up much of a case.

Having said that, If there ARE a considerable number of witnesses for the prosecution, I don't think there's much chance of a Not Guilty verdict being bought in.

[LHA]

I'm sure Dobbie, Husband and the school press office are pleased at the lack of coverage so far

[lvesey]

We have been to a number of days during the various trials. A little manic at the moment, but hoping to attend a number of days on this to try and support those who have come forward.

Well done you, really good to hear there is support for the victims and witnesses

[barnemj]

Bakunin - the hate is obvious but were you a victim? I was at CH when much of what has gone happened and was beaten many times but the doubts re Christianity / monarchy were not uppermost in my thoughts.
If you hated it so much did you ask to leave?
I loved it there - I did not want to leave - all this news is dreadful but for many we were simply were unaware - surely slagging off / blaming a Headmaster when the full facts are not known is unfair until full disclosure is made.
I remember some of the defendants - some were also after my time - but I remember overall a very happy time, a good education and very good teachers (Bomber Nicholson, Dick Dawe, Chris Vincent Smith eg) - I am so sorry that you have such sad memories.

[rockfreak]

People didn't ask to leave if unhappy because we knew how much our parents' hopes were pinned on us. It was a privilege that others didn't have, a good education, the magnificent facilities, etc etc. In my first term in 1952 aged nine I looked around the class and wondered why it was half the size of the north London primary that I'd just left. And why the playing fields seemed to go on as far as the eye could see. My mother rang up all our friends and relations when I got a place at CH. She was delighted but I wonder now whether snobbery also played a part in it. You don't complain at that age. The system draws you in and you get your head down and suffer whatever ensues. Boarding schools are insular institutions way out in the countryside. They make their own rules and culture.

[bakunin]

Barnemj -- no I was not a victim, but knew the most recent two on trial well -- although the recent revelations have made me feel a little insecure and paranoid about one drunken night at the Bax Castle Pub shortly after I left -- a night that I don't remember very well due to irresponsible teenage blackout drinking, except some vague images of being at the doors of a teacher's house, then a notion of leaving rapidly, and a clearer memory of drunkenly stumbling along the sunny dawn road towards the train station. But this is so vague and utterly unreliable, and I don't think anything major happened anyway, and I certainly will never name whose house I was at because I have no solid reason to believe they are anything but innocent. It's more that the recent news has made me rethink the events of this one hazy night in a different light, and wonder...

But the recent news has made me very angry, yes. My words in my last post [Post removed by moderators, as mis-quoting - I hope you understand and appreciate the difficult line we're trying to tread. jtaylor, Moderator] are, as I hope is obvious, angry but humourous bombast, for I certainly do not think that most of the teachers at CH deserve to die! Some of them were great teachers and decent human beings. As the papers mention more and more familiar names (there are now I think 6 or 7 different people who seemingly did far too little, some of whose actions I wonder about criminal negligence...) I start to wonder how many of them were really decent human beings, though.

I was not a victim but I had an awful time at CH for my entire seven years there with only a few exceptions. My Grecians' was relatively tolerable and I was able to come out of my shell a little. For most of the time there I was bullied and socially outcast. I am sure that some of the social conditions than enable child sex abuse by teachers to flourish are the same conditions that led to me having a horrible time there (but nowhere near as bad as some). Most especially the respect for tradition that was endlessly repeated. So many pointless petty rules and hierarchies, so many pointless things done for the sole reason that that was the way they had been done for hundreds of years, without any thought put into the utility or psychological impact on children of these rules. The obsession with how privileged you are to be here discourages and guilts students into silence. And of all the traditions, the most mindless and brutish was "fagging" (not that it was called that at CH as far as I know). Allowing older boys (mainly) to order and push around younger ones in some bizarre travesty of the medieval knight-and-page relation, with the hints of romanticised Greek pederasty, is horrifically barbaric and inegalitarian for a modern society to allow, and a massive vector for bullying, social outcasting, and physical and psychological abuse. Many of these problems are not particular to CH but to English boarding schools in general. At day schools, at least you can escape from the bullying after school.

As for Christianity and Monarchy, they are not really directly relevant except that forcing a thoughtful teenage boy to listen to sermons in Chapel up to three times a week makes him very sympathetic to atheism, but at the time I had no idea to what extent the words issuing from the priest's lecherous mouth were self-serving and so utterly, utterly hollow. And monarchy and remaining feudal institutions of this island are an irrational worm-ridden remnant of a bygone age in a similar way that many of CH's traditions are. Thanks for 20p, weirdly dressed fake Mayor!

I absolutely will condemn Poulton, for everything in the newspapers so far does suggest a very similar pattern to the institutionalized paedophilia in the Catholic Church - excessive self regard for the worthiness and moral stature of oneself and of one's organisation, desperate fixation with preserving reputation, paternalistic and secretive managerial style, tremendous bureaucratic inertia, respect and structural dependence on very dubious medieval traditions, and so on... The quotes from Poulton and Cairncross in the Karim case in, for example this Argus article are very hard to interpret in any other way than doing far too little, far too late, and with much more serious implications if interpreted ungenerously. It seems clear that their lawyers are telling them to phrase things very carefully. However, since you ask nicely I will hold my words from this point on until the trial is over and I have made a full study of all the available information.

I am actually surprised the media haven't made more of what very much appears to be large scale institutional negligence to me.

I would also like to invoke the memory of Gavin Hutchinson with sadness and anger, and remember a funny, charming and intelligent boy, victim of the herd mentality of social outcasting and institutionalized bullying, who had a worse time than me there, whose life was tragically cut short by a car crash when he was 18. I wasn't his best friend but we were starting to become good friends in the final months of CH and the year or less(?) afterwards. Of course his death wasn't in any way CH's fault, but I am angry that he never had, as far as I can tell, a chance to live a happy teenage life (maybe his home life and friends were OK?) --he was just finally coming out of his shell and showing himself to be a witty, caring, smart young man when he died. If he had been at a school other than CH perhaps he would have had at least a few years of happiness in his life.

[bakunin]

Rockfreak - totally agree with you 100% on not leaving. Also, leaving would have made me feel like a wimp who couldn't handle it, and I didn't think elsewhere would necessarily be better and was scared of having to lose the few friends I had. Plus the idea of leaving CH was slightly outside my conception of reality when I was very young and fully immersed in it.

[alterblau]

It is sad, but crucially important, to read Bakunin‘s above post most carefully. Much of value can be gleaned that could be applied to support others in a comparable situation. Certainly more perceptive and sympathetic masters could have alleviated some of his unhappiness. But a vital question is immediately raised. From my own experience, these intense experiences of Bakunin, who says

“I was not a victim but I had an awful time at CH for my entire seven years there ... ,”

are most untypical.

In spite of the acknowledged failings of the British public school system, one must ask why are such experiences and reactions so untypical of that vast majority who were not victims? I believe that my own experience and opinions expressed here are shared by a large majority of male Blues, certainly those of Bakunin’s vintage. So why do we form such a large majority?