Here is a record of the witness statement I supplied to the police. Sections have been redacted while the investigation is ongoing.
Witness Statement of Kid A:
I live at █████████████
This witness statement details my experiences of childhood sexual abuse in the 1980s, while enrolled at █████████.
At the time of this abuse, my name was █████. I have since changed my name by deed poll to ██████.
Around 1986, I was enrolled in ██████ School, █████, London. During the majority of my time at the school I was physically and sexually abused by teachers at the school. This abuse included assaults on school premises and also ritualized abuse on an ‘adventure holiday’ organized by the school together with an organization called ‘████ ████’. I have written a list here of the names of the teachers who abused me and the abuse I was subjected to. The abuse appeared to be institutionally sanctioned.
I want to emphasize that I do not seek any monetary compensation in regard to the crimes listed here, my only interest is in ensuring that this does not happen to any children in the future. I would also like the perpetrators to receive rehabilitation. The abuse I was subjected to was organized, pervasive and almost led me to take my own life. I am speaking out here so that other survivors feel less alone in piecing together their own histories and so that the perpetrators and institutions listed here can be reformed through the incentive of criminal prosecution.
What follows is a list of the teachers at the school who assaulted me and other children.
Richard █████ ( circa. 1986/7)
Mr █████ taught English at ████████ and was my form teacher (Form 3Z). Mr ████ participated the violent sexual abuse of me and other children during an ‘adventure holiday’ trip with an organization called █████ ███. My best estimate is that the trip took place in the summer of 1987. My research into the location at which the abuse took place suggests very strongly that it was the property located at ████ ███████, England.Mr ██████ had already molested me on school premises (as did other teachers), but his behaviour took an even more aggressive turn on this specific ‘holiday’ when he colluded with two other teachers:
Mr ███████
Mr ██████ was notoriously abusive on school premises. He would walk around the classrooms at ██████ physically attacking pupils by twisting their fingers, ears or pulling on hair. He would also molest children, including me, in the communal showers at sports. Often, Mr █████ would perceive some slight during a ‘lesson’ and demand that one of us walk to his desk at the front of the classroom. Here he would hold us firmly by the hands and proceed to beat us, mainly on the buttocks, while shouting. Mr ██████ beatings and sexual assaults of children became so severe that it was ultimately impossible for ███ ████ School to hide his crimes any longer and he was quietly dismissed around 1988. The police were never contacted.In █, many months prior to his dismissal, Mr █████ participated in the organization of the ‘████ ███’ holiday and was central in the ritual abuse I experienced at this camp.
Science teacher (name to be confirmed)
The main organizer of the ‘adventure holiday’ was the█████ School science teacher (circa.1986-88) who seemed to be familiar with the location where the abuse took place. He gave the impression that this was not the first time that he had conducted the ritual abuse of children at this location.This science teacher drove the minibus to the location and my main recollection of him, other than the abuse he subjected us to, was his apparent fascination with Cadbury’s chocolate which he would encourage children to buy for him to gain temporary favour. He seemed to be very familiar with both the location where the ritual abuse took place, and the local area, suggesting that he may have lived in the area at one time and visited the camp with other groups of children in the past.
The ritual abuse
Mr █████ seemed to become increasingly confident in touching and pushing himself against me as the journey to the camp progressed. As I remember, on the way to the camp we stopped off at the Alton Towers theme park, where Mr █████ insisted on riding a roller coaster in the same carriage as me and pushing his clothed groin and genitalia into my buttocks on the ride. I felt deeply disgusted by this, and by Mr ████ continued failure to respect any boundaries between himself and myself, a child. His previous assaults on me, in the school, had escalated to the point of forcing me to put my mouth around his penis. He had not, until this point, however, given me any indication that he intended to anally rape me.I had, throughout my childhood, been subjected to penetrative rape by my alcoholic father, and so I was conditioned not to resist or speak out when men made advances to rape me. I was taught to believe that children had no rights whatsoever when men intended to rape them. On this trip to the theme park, I could now feel a deep fear, based on previous experiences, that Mr █████ intended to rape me.
At Alton Towers, the two other teachers, Mr █████ and the Science Teacher appeared to be grooming their own child victims from our group, and I was left undisturbed by them until later on the trip.
On arriving at the █████ ████████ property, children were divided into different sleeping areas. These groups appear to me, now, to have been delineated based on which children these three teachers intended to abuse. I was, personally, separated into a sleeping area that was divided from the main dormitory. This allowed the abusers easier access to me without disturbing the other children. I cannot speak for their experiences, but I was not alone in being ritually abused.
The abuse took place over many days and the violence is overwhelming to recount. It was interspersed with apparently normal activities, like caving and canoeing, which gave the trip some credibility. It also appeared to be important to the abusers that some children were not abused, so that our accounts of the holiday would not match.
I, like many children, had already learned that there was no point in reporting our abuse because British society apparently had no interest in listening to the voices of abused children. I could not prevent my own father from raping me; I saw no reason to suggest I would be listened to if I spoke out about this ritual abuse. Our abusers knew this and used it to their advantage, subjecting us to torture and gang rape knowing that they could do so with impunity.
During my stay at the camp, men seemed to come and go from the ████ location. It seemed as if the teachers from ███████ were part of a larger group of abusers and had arranged to prostitute us.
My memories of these multiple assaults is indistinct because I moved in and out of waking consciousness under the duress of the rapes I was subjected to. I will list here the most specific acts of violence I recall, but these were constellated in a series of other tortures and abuses that also contributed to deep traumatization.
Spinning
After being gang raped I was tied to the ceiling of a small outdoor shed by my right leg and spun around upside-down until I threw up. I was then submerged head-first underwater. This was repeated again and again until I lost consciousness. I believe this was done to induce compartmentalization through trauma.Burning
I was burned by matches and lighters by various men at the ████ location. This often took place after being raped or abused and was used in conjunction with warnings not to tell anyone about what had happened to me.Forced participation in the murder of another child
I was taken into an outdoor shed building where a girl my age (around 7 years-old), called Clare (or Claire, I never saw her name written down), was tied in a chair. She looked terrified and I felt terrified too. One of the men put a household fork in my hand. He told me to stab Clare or they would kill me. I refused. The men stood in a circle around us and shouted at me, becoming increasingly aggressive. I cried and screamed for them to stop. One man forced my hand, with the fork in it, into Clare's face. At this point I lost conscious awareness.Later, the men shouted at and kicked me, and told me I had killed Clare. At the time I believed them, but I now know that these abusers killed her and used this as a way to keep a seven year old boy silent and scared.
I was locked in the shed with Clare’s body for hours. I do not remember how long it was before I was let out.
The ritualized nature of this experience made me feel that this was not the only child they had killed.
Near-drowning
I was near-drowned in open water near the ██████ location because the men felt that I had made an attempt to escape the camp. They kept holding my head under the water, then allowing me a moment to breathe, then repeating this.
Other abusers at █████████ School:
In addition to my ritual abuse at the camp, I was subjected to other sexual abuse by teachers on ██████ School premises. I have written the names of the abusers below, and a description of the abuse:
████ ████(Circa 1986) Mr ██████ was a piano teacher at ██████ School and gave me and other children ‘piano lessons’ in a small back-room of the music school. Most ‘lessons’ would involve Mr █████ closing the door to the small room and becoming increasingly angry. He would then reach for the area of hair immediately above my ear and then twist it viciously until I cried or shouted. He seemed to believe that children should be taught piano through torture. These assaults continued for several years.
I also have memories of sexual molestation by Mr ███████. This reached a point where I begged a friend to climb a tree near to the small window near the ceiling of the room and witness the extent of my abuse by this teacher. Not that this would have ultimately helped, since other staff members were already fully aware of the abuse being perpetrated throughout the school. This abuse continued until I was allowed to quit ‘piano lessons’.
Mr █████ █████ (circa 1988)
Mr ██████ was a ‘computer’ teacher at ██████ School. On many occasions Mr ███████ would lock the door to the computer room with children inside. On many occasions he molested me in the large attic space to the right of the classroom accessed through a small door in the middle of the wall. These assaults took place in darkness, presumably to confuse me.Mr ███████ seemed to be acutely aware of my vulnerability as a survivor of previous abuse and exploited my need for friendship and connection by grooming me and ultimately turning my friendship into an opportunity to sexually exploit me.
Other teachers seemed to be aware of Mr ██████ activities but, as always seemed to be the case in the school, no action was taken to stop him.
Mr ██████ (Circa 1988)
Mr ███ taught geography at █████████ School. He would regularly assault me in the changing room area of the temporary classrooms built in the playground area of the school. Alongside physical violence, Mr Hague sexually assaulted me during ‘detentions’ which he issued indiscriminately as a way of isolating me after school hours. This was a tactic used by many teachers at the school who abused children. They knew that if they issued a child with a detention, they would be left in isolation with the child and have ample opportunity to sexually exploit that child. This happened to me many times with different teachers at ██████ School.Often, the behavioural problems that resulted from the teacher’s abusing me and other students would be used as an excuse for violent ‘discipline’ and the issuing of ‘detentions’ at which more sexual exploitation would occur. In other words: the school appeared to have designed a system where sexually abused children were ‘punished’ for their reaction to that abuse by being sexually abused again.
I understand that Mr ████ is now deceased.
███████ appears to still be in an educational establishment.
I do not know the current whereabouts of any other teachers who abused me at the school.
I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true.
I will write again when I hear more. I have given names and locations to trusted persons, including a lawyer, to guarantee my safety.
good news and nice post
Thank you, @irfan786