The schools “prioritised the monks and their own reputations over the protection of children … in order to avoid scandal”.
Over forty years of a culture of rape and sexual abuse of children in two leading Catholic private schools. Perpetrators not reported to the police, or just moved on without any kind of punishment. Monks avoiding giving information to or cooperating with those investigating abuse. Allegations dealt with internally, and never referred to the police when there were clear criminal offences committed.
Both schools effectively ignoring the Nolan Report on the safeguarding of childen in the church in 2001, and the Church letting them do that. One former headmaster of Downside “made several trips with a wheelbarrow with files to the edge of the estate and made a bonfire of them”.
Neither school has made public apology or established any kind of redress to the victims.
Both the schools and the religious foundations that run them should lose their charitable status. I can't see why on earth they should be effectively subsidised by the tax payer to at best ignore child protection, at worst have a decades long culture of conspiring to cover up the rape of children. For each perpetrator unreported to the police, there were many of the clergy there that knew, and let this happen. This is awful, and astonishing, and although some of the individuals have been brought to justice, many have not, and the organisations have not had to pay the price for this - and they should.
(And then the very interesting postscript to this one. Two senior social services staff (one the actual designated Safeguarding Officer, the other the Deputy Director of Children’s Services) both gave evidence to the enquiry that while dealing with one case about a priest accused of abuse, they had two calls from the office of the Secretary of State for Education asking for information about the case that they were not prepared to give as it was a live child protection and police case. One was then phoned - she testified to the inquiry - by the Secretary of State himself, Michael Gove, who again asked for information that they did not release.
Gove and the DfE ‘cannot recall’ making any such calls. Is an odd thing for the two professionals to make up, especially as Gove had no personal connection to the matter.
Why would he be interested in the outcome of one particular case at one particular school in Somerset to which he had no connection? Maybe he was asked a favour. The school governor with responsibility for child safeguarding during some of the period concerned was one Lady Gillian Rees-Mogg. The abbot of the the school/monastery officiated at her son’s wedding. Her son is the MP for the neighbouring constituency. He’s been in the news a bit.
That all seems fine and not at all unprofessional and underhand.)
Over forty years of a culture of rape and sexual abuse of children in two leading Catholic private schools. Perpetrators not reported to the police, or just moved on without any kind of punishment. Monks avoiding giving information to or cooperating with those investigating abuse. Allegations dealt with internally, and never referred to the police when there were clear criminal offences committed.
Both schools effectively ignoring the Nolan Report on the safeguarding of childen in the church in 2001, and the Church letting them do that. One former headmaster of Downside “made several trips with a wheelbarrow with files to the edge of the estate and made a bonfire of them”.
Neither school has made public apology or established any kind of redress to the victims.
Both the schools and the religious foundations that run them should lose their charitable status. I can't see why on earth they should be effectively subsidised by the tax payer to at best ignore child protection, at worst have a decades long culture of conspiring to cover up the rape of children. For each perpetrator unreported to the police, there were many of the clergy there that knew, and let this happen. This is awful, and astonishing, and although some of the individuals have been brought to justice, many have not, and the organisations have not had to pay the price for this - and they should.
(And then the very interesting postscript to this one. Two senior social services staff (one the actual designated Safeguarding Officer, the other the Deputy Director of Children’s Services) both gave evidence to the enquiry that while dealing with one case about a priest accused of abuse, they had two calls from the office of the Secretary of State for Education asking for information about the case that they were not prepared to give as it was a live child protection and police case. One was then phoned - she testified to the inquiry - by the Secretary of State himself, Michael Gove, who again asked for information that they did not release.
Gove and the DfE ‘cannot recall’ making any such calls. Is an odd thing for the two professionals to make up, especially as Gove had no personal connection to the matter.
Why would he be interested in the outcome of one particular case at one particular school in Somerset to which he had no connection? Maybe he was asked a favour. The school governor with responsibility for child safeguarding during some of the period concerned was one Lady Gillian Rees-Mogg. The abbot of the the school/monastery officiated at her son’s wedding. Her son is the MP for the neighbouring constituency. He’s been in the news a bit.
That all seems fine and not at all unprofessional and underhand.)