I have so far named two paedophile teachers from my time at Warwick School: Alan Wilkins , who is dead, and Charles Watmough who is alive and who I tried to doorstep a year ago. In both cases Warwick covered up what it knew and allowed both nonces to move on to fresh fields without a stain on their character. Wilkins, I believe, carried on noncing in Harrogate while Watmough gave private piano lessons to kids in Scarborough. That is Warwick’s shame. Last night a chap from the year below me got in touch having read this website.
He was not abused either sexually or physically. But he read about how the evil sadistic bastard Geoffrey Eve had physically abused me aged 10 and recalled his terror of Eve lest he too was abused. All boys in Eve’s “care” felt that terror and must have dreaded going to school each day as did I. Warwick covered up for him for years, allowing him time off after his initial reign of terror, only for him to come back just in time to be my form master and to throw my head against the hard wall not once but twice.
But at least I was not a victim of one of Warwick’s peadophiles. Or might I have been in a minor way?
I am all too aware that we victims of all the horrors of 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s Warwick are aging and some, like me, have mixed health. As time goes by more victims will die before any form of justice or closure is secured. As for the perps, a number have already died. The rest are in their 70s or older and, at this rate, will escape justice too.
Warwick, like myself, has its hands tied right now. The man, I believe, to be the worst offender is already a convicted paedophile for offences committed before he arrived at Warwick. The CPS is sitting on a file with sworn statements by, now, 7 victims from Warwick. One of those has killed himself. I cannot believe that his state of mind was enhanced by that trauma suffered at Warwick. But the CPS has been sitting on that file about Mr. X for three years.
If it brings charges I can name the man. If it declines to bring charges I can also name him and will do so. But while we wait Warwickshire fuzz has asked me not to name him lest it prejudice matters. Being a law abiding citizen I am not naming him although his activities are widely known among Old Warwickians, OWs.
But last night’s chat, and a growing frustration at the failure of the CPS to bring charges against Mr. X prompts me to name another teacher who was a paedophile just to try and make Warwick and others aware of the scale of the problem. I have held back on tis name as I had viewed David Stuke as a great English teacher and also, like Alan Wilkins, a big driving force behind drama at Warwick. In a place where the prevailing ethos was one of the boorish rugger hearty that was welcome. Stuke remained friends with Wilkins exchanging letters after Wilkins left under something of a cloud, although not one that Warwick admitted to at the time. But the Masters at Warwick must have known.
On Stuke’s death Warwick started a prize competition in his name. Many OWs look back on Stuke with fond memories.
And worse still Stuke had attended the same prep school as my late father, Yardley Court. Dad was a couple of years his senior but they always exchanged warm greetings. So I am aware that in writing this I will upset some folks and I do have some feelings that I should not. But facts are facts.
Stuke was an alcoholic. You could smell it on him and his speech was sometimes slurred. He must have had some demons. These days his drinking would have seen him sacked but back in the 70s and 80s it was another country. He was, I thought, what might term a “harmless old Queen.”
Stuke was not only a teacher but he was a boarding house master and, in many ways, that was a dark place where a lot of bad things happened. I know, I boarded for my final terms.
But it was younger boys who gained the attention of Stuke not hulking 18 year olds. One such boy, my age now, recalls how at night if the younger lads heard stumbling in the corridor outside a communal dorm they knew it was a drunken Stuke and would ensure that all lights were out and that sheets were held tight around them lest the boarding house master wandered in and let his hands wander.
I do not think his activities went further than that. He was not the worst offender by a long chalk but what he did do was criminal. Having thought about this last night I found images of him running his hands through the hair of a young boy flashing through my mind. I almost think I was that young boy. I stress that I might be imagining it was me. It was a long, long time ago and I find thinking about Warwick just so painful at every level. I am sure I have a number of repressed memories.
Only last weekend I remembered kind Mrs. Fawcett taking a nine year old me aside as the rest of the form made Mother’s Day cards. I had no mother by then. Mrs. Fawcett was very kind indeed. But, none the less, it was a sad memory. But other memories are so horrible maybe I am repressing them. If they come back even today it is as nightmares.
The memory plays tricks on all of us and that is one reason why the CPS needs to pull its finger out and charge Mr. X and why Warwick must then come clean for I will, by then, have named at least five other paedophiles on the teaching staff. I have a horrible feeling there might have been more and I’d bet the ranch that the number of victims is very large indeed. Only when Warwick admits to the scale of the problem will more come forward and only when or if, the CPS acts will the scale of what went on have a chance of becoming clear.
