Roger Martin - trial

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Otter
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Re: Roger Martin - trial

Post by Otter »

richardb wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 9:02 am What has the conduct of others got to do with JR?
Because it's myopic (perfect word, Howard) for someone with the following views about policing and discipline ...

Bring back the good old days when they/we could clip 'em round the ear-'ole and take 'em home to Mum & Dad for another good walloping !

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2391

.. and who has expressed nostalgia for the use of the cane, to lay into someone else who also sanctioned violence as a means of discipline, including a clip around the ear.

I like J.R.'s presence on here. Perceptive, interesting and very funny at the right times. But in this context I don't feel there's much moral authority in the criticism of Villified.
Last edited by Otter on Thu Jul 11, 2019 9:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
richardb
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Re: Roger Martin - trial

Post by richardb »

Now that is relevant as it is JR.

But you next ask if he ever clipped anyone around the ear himself or administered the cane personally.

It is precisely the myopia that you talk about that has left you unable to see through Vilified.
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Re: Roger Martin - trial

Post by Otter »

richardb wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 9:57 am Now that is relevant as it is JR.

But you next ask if he ever clipped anyone around the ear himself or administered the cane personally.

It is precisely the myopia that you talk about that has left you unable to see through Vilified.
I think the mere viewpoint is sufficient. To support it there and then condemn it elsewhere when it's convenient.

I think Vilified's actions were totally unacceptable. But he has repeatedly apologised, not sought to minimise, or to blame others, has repeatedly and directly addressed tough (and warranted) questions honestly and frankly. Honestly I don't know what else he can say. I condemn his action, I don't see through him, but there's nothing else he can do in terms of addressing what he did, on this forum.
Last edited by Otter on Thu Jul 11, 2019 10:09 am, edited 3 times in total.
richardb
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Re: Roger Martin - trial

Post by richardb »

Having met JR, I take some of his views with a pinch of salt.
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Re: Roger Martin - trial

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AMP
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Re: Roger Martin - trial

Post by AMP »

wurzel wrote: Wed Jul 10, 2019 10:19 pm
Also note in LhB/A MAb, Pe A/B & ThA with attached masters houses the stairs are towards the centre of the house and all pupils had to pass by an assistant housemasters study to get to bottom of the stairs and then both bottom and top dorm had a bedroom between the stairs and the dorm door - when LhA became a senior house these were moniters studies but in LhB def they were assistant housemasters bedrooms (in 1982 Torkingtons Study was at the bottom of the stairs and I think he was by top dorm, O'Meera had the smaller LhB rear flat, the Flemings had LhA flat (he had just started but she still taught in Brighton) and I think it was Mr Greig ? who had the other LhB junior housemasters room but may have that wrong on the year)


Gunning possibly

There was another junior master who lasted about 1 year from 81 to 82, Critchley. Very odd and a bit eccentric but harmless.
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Re: Roger Martin - trial

Post by AMP »

harryh wrote: Wed Jul 10, 2019 9:29 pm
Mid A 15 wrote: Wed Jul 10, 2019 8:57 pm Maybe I am on my own here but I don't like the tag team baiting Vilified has been subject to at all.

He has answered some rigorous questions fully and expressed contrition. It should stop there.

People rightly want transparency regarding the awful abuse that has blighted CH and to know why it was allowed to happen.

They won't get that if a tag team of online bullies sets to work on new members.

It's unbecoming behaviour if we wish to be part of an inclusive forum.

I'll go back to sleep now.
As usual, Andy, spot on.
Not quite.

This isn't the appropriate forum to eulogise about child abusers
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Re: Roger Martin - trial

Post by Avon »

richardb wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 9:02 am What has the conduct of others got to do with JR?
I think this forum has an issue with moderator quality in the round, actually.
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Re: Roger Martin - trial

Post by Vilified »

Sadly, much against my hopes, it appears that I must log in and post once more, because yet again Vilified has been vilified.

It is hard to see why richardb seems to think it is myopic for the question to be raised of J.R.’s credentials for acting as a hanging judge in the matter of which I have admitted guilt. Is this not a case of the ‘let he who is without sin…’ scenario, to which one generous-minded poster previously alluded? It seems entirely fair for the question to be asked, in view of the inquisition to which I have been subjected.

It is surely offensive for richardb find fault with the decent Otter for being ‘unable to see through Vilified’. It is one thing for the forum’s pet barrister to correct me in terms of my understanding of the law, but another for him to suggest that my full and detailed account requires any ‘seeing through’. I could not have been more frank, as several have acknowledged. I think that what richardb sees is his own unflattering mental image of me which he projects onto me; and that is not the same as ‘seeing through’ me.

I have a further problem with richardb’s rebuke that I ‘should have known better’. I didn’t. Why not? Because I had been brought up to expect to be cuffed at school and to see my classmates cuffed on a daily basis, even violently, so that their heads bounced off the blackboard. As I said, I was not trained as a teacher; and my first advice, from an experienced colleague, before I even entered my first classroom, was to establish my authority in that first lesson by cuffing someone. (Again, you have only to watch the film ‘Kes’, set in a secondary modern though it was, to appreciate something of the ethos of the times.) The school did not inform me as to what was or was not acceptable. You might as well say that CH should have known that it should have made clear to staff what was or wasn’t acceptable discipline. It didn’t And I didn’t ‘know better’. And that includes not being aware of the possibility of causing actual injury.

With regard to AMP’s bewilderment as to why I openly came on the forum. I should have said that my initial interest was to try to ascertain what exactly it was that RM was accused of, since I was staggered by his impending case; and then to follow the progress of the case, expecting and hoping that he would be acquitted. And then, when the worst happened, I still felt duty bound to say what I knew of him, which was by way of a character witness, I suppose, hoping that there had been some terrible miscarriage of justice. That is not the same as 'eulogising over child abusers'. And what I wrote I wrote in bewilderment, and before richardb finally revealed the actual detail of the conviction and the convincing details which led to it, which had all been very vague before.

Further, as to AMP’s bewilderment. I posted a ‘full confession’ because I did not think that anything less would quash the more sinister speculations of the witch hunters as to why I ‘left suddenly’ and apparently with no explanation. It seemed to me (I think most would agree) that my reputation, poor though it may be, is better served by a true explanation of the reason for my departure than by noxious speculations.
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Re: Roger Martin - trial

Post by Chrissie Boy »

I think it'd make abundant sense now for Julian to delete the inexcusably large number of needlessly unpleasant posts on this thread and then to lock it until the end of time. Justifiable posts should stay, while petty and downright unjustifiable posts should go.

Vilified had every right to raise his head above the parapet in order to nip in the bud any negative speculation about the reason for his dismissal. He deserves to be shown respect in the same way that we ourselves (broadly speaking) do. Okay, so he may have taken a split-second wrong turn at a particular point in his earlier life, but I'm sure we've all done that and many times too, and I'm sure we all regret having done so (if we possess fully-functioning consciences, which Vilified clearly does). A few pages back, he mentioned a sad fact of life, which is that some pupils do their utmost to bait their teachers into exploding with rage, and I can't help feeling that we've been seeing a manifestation of that exact same behaviour here on this very thread from some of our contributors. The vicious sanctimoniousness of their posts and the relentless needling of Vilified has left me slack-jawed with consternation and has given me a very different take on some of our community-members.

I see no justification whatever in repeatedly kicking Vilified in the ribs, especially when it seems to be being done aimlessly: which is to say, what on earth are you all hoping to achieve by all this unpleasantness? The world is a miserable enough place already, so please let the whole topic drop now rather than rendering the world even more miserable to no constructive purpose. Vilified is a real person, not to mention a perfectly respectable retired headmaster, yet he's been treated (in my opinion) with a troll-like hatefulness by certain Old Blues who seem to think that because this is the Internet, it's okay to be pointedly mean to a person whom they'd probably not for one moment consider being mean to in the flesh.

All of us have clay feet; I have an especially large pair myself. But enough is enough. If there's a Last Judgement, it wouldn't surprise me if God's attitude to the eardrum incident turned out to be "Well, it wasn't your finest hour, but these things happen." Because they do. And anyway, the 1970s were another planet. (Which of course doesn't excuse sexual abuse.) But simply trying to score a point over an ex-member of CH staff for no more reason than that the opportunity has presented itself, and doing so with as many vicious kicks and jabs as possible because you know he can't kick you back.... It's just not on.

The hounds will doubtless now turn on me, but at least that'll take the heat off Vilified. In my capacity as a proper grown-up, I shan't bother reading or replying to any criticisms that are thrown at me.
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Re: Roger Martin - trial

Post by AMP »

Vilified wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 11:12 am Sadly, much against my hopes, it appears that I must log in and post once more, because yet again Vilified has been vilified.

It is hard to see why richardb seems to think it is myopic for the question to be raised of J.R.’s credentials for acting as a hanging judge in the matter of which I have admitted guilt. Is this not a case of the ‘let he who is without sin…’ scenario, to which one generous-minded poster previously alluded? It seems entirely fair for the question to be asked, in view of the inquisition to which I have been subjected.

It is surely offensive for richardb find fault with the decent Otter for being ‘unable to see through Vilified’. It is one thing for the forum’s pet barrister to correct me in terms of my understanding of the law, but another for him to suggest that my full and detailed account requires any ‘seeing through’. I could not have been more frank, as several have acknowledged. I think that what richardb sees is his own unflattering mental image of me which he projects onto me; and that is not the same as ‘seeing through’ me.

I have a further problem with richardb’s rebuke that I ‘should have known better’. I didn’t. Why not? Because I had been brought up to expect to be cuffed at school and to see my classmates cuffed on a daily basis, even violently, so that their heads bounced off the blackboard. As I said, I was not trained as a teacher; and my first advice, from an experienced colleague, before I even entered my first classroom, was to establish my authority in that first lesson by cuffing someone. (Again, you have only to watch the film ‘Kes’, set in a secondary modern though it was, to appreciate something of the ethos of the times.) The school did not inform me as to what was or was not acceptable. You might as well say that CH should have known that it should have made clear to staff what was or wasn’t acceptable discipline. It didn’t And I didn’t ‘know better’. And that includes not being aware of the possibility of causing actual injury.

With regard to AMP’s bewilderment as to why I openly came on the forum. I should have said that my initial interest was to try to ascertain what exactly it was that RM was accused of, since I was staggered by his impending case; and then to follow the progress of the case, expecting and hoping that he would be acquitted. And then, when the worst happened, I still felt duty bound to say what I knew of him, which was by way of a character witness, I suppose, hoping that there had been some terrible miscarriage of justice. That is not the same as 'eulogising over child abusers'. And what I wrote I wrote in bewilderment, and before richardb finally revealed the actual detail of the conviction and the convincing details which led to it, which had all been very vague before.

Further, as to AMP’s bewilderment. I posted a ‘full confession’ because I did not think that anything less would quash the more sinister speculations of the witch hunters as to why I ‘left suddenly’ and apparently with no explanation. It seemed to me (I think most would agree) that my reputation, poor though it may be, is better served by a true explanation of the reason for my departure than by noxious speculations.
That is a late admission.

Child abuse is child abuse, what difference does it make?

Why did you need to know what the incident was and the unsavoury details?

Noone else had asked?

I quote:

It would help greatly to know what was proved against him. All I've garnered is that he encouraged skinny-dipping, that there was bum-sliding in the lav ends, and that he naively thought it OK to film naked boys cavorting around... but nothing as to the nature of any particular physical offence against any individual. I agree that in the wisdom of 40 years
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Re: Roger Martin - trial

Post by wurzel »

AMP wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 10:37 am
wurzel wrote: Wed Jul 10, 2019 10:19 pm
Also note in LhB/A MAb, Pe A/B & ThA with attached masters houses the stairs are towards the centre of the house and all pupils had to pass by an assistant housemasters study to get to bottom of the stairs and then both bottom and top dorm had a bedroom between the stairs and the dorm door - when LhA became a senior house these were moniters studies but in LhB def they were assistant housemasters bedrooms (in 1982 Torkingtons Study was at the bottom of the stairs and I think he was by top dorm, O'Meera had the smaller LhB rear flat, the Flemings had LhA flat (he had just started but she still taught in Brighton) and I think it was Mr Greig ? who had the other LhB junior housemasters room but may have that wrong on the year)


Gunning possibly

There was another junior master who lasted about 1 year from 81 to 82, Critchley. Very odd and a bit eccentric but harmless.
No not Gunning - I knew him well as I had him on LE-GE for OLevel Geog, sure it was a language type master as I had as little to do with them as possible. Neil Fleming definitely started at CH the same day as me, Marlene was still head of classics at Brighton & Hove high school for girls, hence on my LE the classics trip to Greece (which i did as a Clas Civ student) was in conjunction with Brighton. I believe the Aside garden flats were slightly bigger than the Bside as they went over the access passage - hence although he was LhB junior housemaster Mr Fleming being married got the Aside flat and the single OMeera had the smaller Bside flat although he was attached to LhA.
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Re: Roger Martin - trial

Post by wurzel »

Chrissie Boy wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 11:18 am Okay, so he may have taken a split-second wrong turn at a particular point in his earlier life, but I'm sure we've all done that and many times too, and I'm sure we all regret having done so (if we possess fully-functioning consciences, which Vilified clearly does). A few pages back, he mentioned a sad fact of life, which is that some pupils do their utmost to bait their teachers into exploding with rage, and I can't help feeling that we've been seeing a manifestation of that exact same behaviour here on this very thread from some of our contributors. The vicious sanctimoniousness of their posts and the relentless needling of Vilified has left me slack-jawed with consternation and has given me a very different take on some of our community-members.

The hounds will doubtless now turn on me, but at least that'll take the heat off Vilified. In my capacity as a proper grown-up, I shan't bother reading or replying to any criticisms that are thrown at me.
I will add to this with a story from the other side of the fence as it where that if looked at through modern eyes would likely make the papers but at the time was dealt with internally

I will not name names but one of my contempories pulled a replica pistol on Mr Stindt in a maths lesson - being a new teacher who had just come from SouthAfrica (and if the rumours were to be believed -it's stopped military nuclear programme) he started diving behind his desk before his conscious told his instinct it was unlikely to be real - that child was physically lifted from his desk and expelled from the classroom. Later the same pupil had an air pistol at school and it was discovered where he had hidden it (under a window seat in the library but in a bag with a nametape sewn in). For the first incident he had the replica confiscated until the end of term and a DT for the second I think he got sent home a couple of days early - but if those happened today I believe he would have gained a Police record which would have stopped him doing the very successful job he has done for the last 25 years - the world is not Black & White

Do you think Mr Stindt should have been sacked for manhandling a pupil who pulled a gun (replica) on him ?
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Re: Roger Martin - trial

Post by AMP »

wurzel wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 11:49 am
AMP wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 10:37 am
wurzel wrote: Wed Jul 10, 2019 10:19 pm
Also note in LhB/A MAb, Pe A/B & ThA with attached masters houses the stairs are towards the centre of the house and all pupils had to pass by an assistant housemasters study to get to bottom of the stairs and then both bottom and top dorm had a bedroom between the stairs and the dorm door - when LhA became a senior house these were moniters studies but in LhB def they were assistant housemasters bedrooms (in 1982 Torkingtons Study was at the bottom of the stairs and I think he was by top dorm, O'Meera had the smaller LhB rear flat, the Flemings had LhA flat (he had just started but she still taught in Brighton) and I think it was Mr Greig ? who had the other LhB junior housemasters room but may have that wrong on the year)


Gunning possibly

There was another junior master who lasted about 1 year from 81 to 82, Critchley. Very odd and a bit eccentric but harmless.
No not Gunning - I knew him well as I had him on LE-GE for OLevel Geog, sure it was a language type master as I had as little to do with them as possible. Neil Fleming definitely started at CH the same day as me, Marlene was still head of classics at Brighton & Hove high school for girls, hence on my LE the classics trip to Greece (which i did as a Clas Civ student) was in conjunction with Brighton. I believe the Aside garden flats were slightly bigger than the Bside as they went over the access passage - hence although he was LhB junior housemaster Mr Fleming being married got the Aside flat and the single OMeera had the smaller Bside flat although he was attached to LhA.
Critchley taught classics, had a beard and wore glasses.

May have been replaced by Fleming Sep '82?

Maybe Willie Lough had it!

Although he lived in Steyning.

Lovely man and a highly respected linguist.
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Re: Roger Martin - trial

Post by Vilified »

AMP wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 11:36 am
Child abuse is child abuse, what difference does it make?

Why did you need to know what the incident was and the unsavoury details?

Noone else had asked?
Don't you ever give up on your niggling and nastiness?!
I KNEW THE MAN! I had spent two years at CH in the same house, and I recalled his thoughtfulness towards me as well as his dedication (from all I saw) towards the boys. Therefore I found it mind-boggling that he should have had accusations of abuse made against him. And when, as for so long, all that came out was such things as taking the seniors off to go skinny dipping, which on one occasion involved me driving some of the party, it was only human for me to try to ascertain if that sort of stuff was the sole basis of his conviction.
Do I give a toss whether anyone else had asked?! NO! Maybe they had not spent two years living in the same house as his deputy and building up the same sense of respect.
Now will you kindly go and find a less disgusting hobby than twisting your knife in me...?!
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