Head of music is acquitted of child abuse
mainSean Farrell, former head of music at Wellington College and director of performance at Trinity College, London, has been found not guilty of fondling a pupil more than 30 years ago.
Farrell, 49, denied abusing a pupil at Ampleforth College in the 1980s. He told the jury he had never kissed or touched the boy inappropriately.
Fellow teachers testified that they had not heard or seen anything untoward in his behaviour with children.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
The national media report trials but, apparently, not acquittals.
Acquittals don’t get published because the MSM got what they wanted when the charges were brought. Reporting acquittals would make the MSM look like idiots.
Actually my knowledge of UK media law may be a little rusty but a newspaper which reported the start of criminal court proceedings but not a subsequent acquittal would almost certainly lose the absolute privilege under the “fair, accurate and contemporaneous” test and therefore open itself to a libel action by the acquitted defendant. Of course the report of the acquittal tends to be rather less prominent than the initial reports of the accusations!
This was reported ad nauseum in PE yonks ago.