Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Avon wrote: Thu Jul 05, 2018 7:59 pm There should be an enquiry. This was endemic. During my time at CH:

My history teacher was raping someone.
My chaplain was abusing multiple people, and the link between him and Bishop Ball merits further investigation.
My cricket coach was abusing multiple people.
My French teacher was an out-and-out psychopath, and later at Haileybury went on to abuse another pupil.

All of the above have been convicted.

The governance, pastoral care and competence of the senior leadership needs examination. Not only do we need proof that reoccurrence is unlikely but I think we need an examination of the past. Personally, I want portraits unhung, I want pensions commuted, I want there to be consequence for incompetence. But maybe that’s just me.

I’ve never felt less inclined to feel bound by the Charge.

Wait, who was the French teacher?

I completely agree with your post. I'm more angry with RCP et al than the paedophiles.

Avon wrote: Thu Jul 05, 2018 7:59 pm There should be an enquiry. This was endemic. During my time at CH: ...

My chaplain was abusing multiple people, and the link between him and Bishop Ball merits further investigation.

This is already online somewhere. I find it hard to understand why no-one has picked this up. Who is going to pick up the baton and run with it???

I’ve never felt less inclined to feel bound by the Charge.

Ditto

For those of you wondering about the full background story, the article linked makes appalling reading:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/goodness ... upils/amp/

The French teacher is Rowley: http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/152406 ... ed__pupil/, who I always thought was particularly evil when I was ah CH. He seems to have dodged a bullet compared to the others though; from my recollection he deserves to die in jail too.

I'd be cautious about posting links to that "goodness and harmony" site, it seems to be somewhat on the lunatic fringe, though there is nothing "Fake news" about the connection with the Bishop of Lewes, I remember him well.

I'm not sure if this is my white male privilege speaking, but I'd be disappointed if Dobbie got off with a lighter sentence than Husband, there must be any number of potential complainants against Dobbie, stretching back to the 1980s. I thought Husband was a nice guy, I think I had him up to LE as my history teacher but obviously the circumstances leading up to his departure reveal otherwise.

<<edited in response to PM>>

Goodness and harmony is definitely odd but he is thorough with his research. Ties together some interesting connections.

Sorry, I edited post to add more thoughts after you responded.

The difficulty with predicting sentence is we don't have a particularly detailed knowledge of the facts of the offences.

Husband has a single complainant but falls to be sentenced for penetrative activity which pushes his case right up the scale.

Dobbie is lower level touching with a large number of complainants over a lengthy period of time.

I would expect Dobbie's sentence to be slightly lower than Husband's so they can do their time together.

I would hazard a guess there's more than one sleeping uneasily in his bed tonight.

Avon wrote: Thu Jul 05, 2018 7:59 pm There should be an enquiry. This was endemic. During my time at CH:

My history teacher was raping someone.
My chaplain was abusing multiple people, and the link between him and Bishop Ball merits further investigation.
My cricket coach was abusing multiple people.
My French teacher was an out-and-out psychopath, and later at Haileybury went on to abuse another pupil.

All of the above have been convicted.

And if you were learning the trumpet that particular teacher was busy sending poo in the post to his nanny:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.thearg ... 792263.amp

Not forgetting the Band Master who ran away with a pupil. I realise that it was consensual, but it is still disturbing and a serious failure in safeguarding that things were allowed to get that far, especially given how blatant the situation was.

As it happens, I had forgotten about him.

This was roughly contemporaneous with the cases that have recently been before the courts, right?

A quick scan of old copies of The Blue tells me it was summer term 1993, it is mentioned as a joke in the Barnes A house notes.

Hello all, new poster though longtime lurker.

I can see the arguments for and against and I'm generally in favour of the more open the better.

But I am mindful that people have children and presumably grandchildren, who are blameless. This must be horrendous for them to navigate as a family and I feel that the path forward might just be a little easier if as parents, they are reassured that these discussions aren't going to be thrown up by a google search by their kids or their kids' friends. I appreciate all the MSM are covering in any case but conversations here have the potential to be more raw I think.

Also, if there is as some have suggested more to come, I do think caution is wise; I was not as cynical about the plea from the school as some - I'm not a legal mind but it would be horrendous if this or future trials were derailed because we had inadvertently shared stuff?

Finally - inquiry - yes I think there should be one, not into these two as the law has presumably done its job but into the teachers and adults who were supposed to be protecting us but for whatever reason turned a blind eye. There must be lessons learned, for the school and for any institution with this set up.

The chances of any future trial (or appeal) being derailed by anything posted on here are remote.

An appeal would effectively be a paper based exercise in which the Court of Appeal considered what happened at court with the aid of transcripts.

So far as any future trial is concerned, the jury panel could be directly asked if they have read the forum and excused jury service if they have. In fairness, few (if any) jurors should know even of the existence of the forum and - if they do - they should be serving on any jury.

We have had a series of documents which have basically told us how things have changed. That is true. But those changes have largely reflected changes in legislation, safeguarding etc. They are not voluntary measures adopted by the school to pout right what went wrong before.

I have a lot of questions I would like answers to. In respect of Burr, Webb, Karim and Husband I would like to know:

1. Why was each dismissed ? Was it because sexual abuse (in whatever form) was alleged against him ? Were the police involved ? If not, why not ? Was the school asked to provide any references for him by any subsequent prospective employer and, if so, did they say explicitly why he was dismissed ?;
2. Did the reason(s) why each was dismissed relate in any way to the matters to which he has now been convicted ?;
3. Why were none of the cases made the subject of complaint to the police.

I would also like to know:

4. Why was Burr allowed to participate in school related activities such as Norfolk Broads trips after he was dismissed ?
5. Why was one of the complainants in the Karim case (still a minor at the time) given the impression that if she pursued a formal complaint, her name would be all over the newspapers ?
6. When the school first adopted formal safeguarding procedures (i am not aware of there having been any in my days);
7. When the school first began to provide formal safeguarding training and who undertook the training ?

There is a lot more that I have yet to collect my thoughts on but I would like some openness from the school about what has gone wrong.

And lest it be thought I am over reacting, I was in a boarding house for three years when Webb was actively committing offences. I may or may not be one of his victims: I will never know as he will never tell the truth about the extent of his offending.


Words come easy, action is harder.

I'd like answers to each of those questions. And like you I slept for 3 years in a boarding house where Webb has confessed to prowling the dormitories.

Can I suggest compiling a list of questions and making a joint approach to the school for answers?

Julian and I have already spoken about this proposal, and I'm quite agreeable to 'go with the majority''.

Reading some of the above posts, I still find it hard to believe that during my 5 and a half years at CH, I never came across child abuse by teachers. I'm not saying it didn't happen. After my later career and coming into contact with one or two people who had those sort of traits, then looking back to all the CH staff, I cannot think of any of them who fitted the category.

Maybe C.M.E. Seaman as HM ruled a very tight ship.