The behind-closed-doors enquiry continues into historic abuse at Warwick School. Victims like me aren’t allowed to see reports into what went on, even when – as in my case – the school has already concluded that I was physically abused by serial sadist, Geoffrey Eve, and apologized in private. Nor has there been any public apology or statement, as we victims ALL want. And, I fear, Warwick remains in denial as to the scale of historic sexual abuse.
It has acknowledged that there were two abusers on the payroll. One cannot be named for complex legal reasons. The other, I plan to name after making a road trip to the North to confront him. But I have always suspected that Warwick’s failure to be open about the problem means there were other molesters on the payroll, and victims were thus not coming forward.
Yesterday, I communicated with two new OWs. Both named one deceased master from the boarding house, who I had viewed as a rather pathetic drunken but entertaining old queen. I fear it was worse than that. One reports walking into a room, where his teacher faced a teenage boy sitting on an upper bunk with his legs apart, the old man’s hands stroking his inner thighs. According to the other OW, if this teacher wandered down the corridor late at night – and almost certainly drunk – “you made sure you were fully changed or under the bedclothes.”
Then, there was a second teacher whom I remembered as a nasty brute from my time in the Junior School, where he had a room. I wasn’t his type, clearly; unlike Boy B, I wasn’t blonde. “Lucky” boy B was, my second source says, often asked up to this master’s private rooms to audition for some bogus play he planned to put on – but never did. The audition involved the master firing imaginary arrows into the pretty young boy, who would then collapse into his arms. The master would cradle him as he died – yup, an audition, whatever you say.
Both sources relay details of a sadist third teacher, a man venerated as Warwick legend who, like the other two, is now dead. He was reported to ex-Headmaster Lock in 2017, and the matter was duly swept under the carpet. I have flagged this up with those involved in the current enquiry, naming names.
For what it is worth, my second contact also reports witnessing the sadist, Eve, violently hitting a boy whom he had dragged from class in 3B. The headmaster at the time, Jack Marshall – an old school gent, who would use a cricket bat if you deserved such a punishment, but who was a good guy, nonetheless – had to intervene and shouted at Eve to stop. The idea that Warwick was unaware of what a monster Eve was, is just poppycock.
The scale of historic sexual, and physical, abuse at Warwick is, I fear, far greater than I had thought. Only when Warwick admits to this – rather than pretending in public that it did not have an issue - only when it apologises publicly to all abuse victims, will more OWs feel empowered to come forward. Only then we will we begin to know the true scale of the horrors of the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s.