A guide to the child abuse inquiry at English music schools

A guide to the child abuse inquiry at English music schools

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norman lebrecht

October 06, 2019

Ian Pace has posted here a really useful set of links to the past week’s public hearings, which contained shocking disclosures.

Aside from assaults on children, there were cover-ups upon cover-ups and a persistent refusal, by past heads and governors, to acknowledge that anything wrong took place at such distinguished schools as Yehudi Menuhin and Purcell.

Despite the imposing body of evidence assembled this week, there are calls for more named witnesses to be summoned.

Watch the videos on Ian’s post.

Comments

  • Quis says:

    How many more are being protected?

    Perhaps we all know.

  • Ben G. says:

    In this case, who else is reminded of the Netflix horror
    movie “The Perfection”?

  • christopher storey says:

    Having read all the transcripts, I do not think that your summary above is fair comment at all. There was no evidence that I could see of ” cover ups on cover ups” and nor did there seem to me to be “persistent refusal … to acknowledge that anything wrong took place” . What there was , was a failure to take effective action . If you are going to comment on what are quasi legal proceedings then there is an obligation to summarise matters accurately

    • Anon says:

      It’s all a huge cover up, within the schools specified – Chethams, Wells, Purcell and Menuhin. Speak to the pupils who attended them these last forty years, they knew what was going on, entrusted the staff with snippets of information, but nothing was done as nobody “would believe children.” Sick. The whole lot of them.

    • Saxon Broken says:

      Christopher Storey writes: “no evidence…”cover ups” and nor did there seem to me to be “persistent refusal … to acknowledge that anything wrong took place”. [Only] a failure to take effective action.

      Huh? Some would say that the “failure to take effective action” is because their was “a refusal to acknowledge that anything wrong took place” which required “effective action” and not taking action amount to “a cover up”.

  • Alexander Tarak says:

    In my own experience the mental health of some of the teachers at the college I attended was, to put it kindly, questionable.
    (To put it not so kindly: unhinged would be a fair description).

  • Anonymous says:

    Sorry, I was a pupil at one of these specialist music schools. Whilst I was at that school nothing was going on. I even studied with one of the teachers who has been accused for 9 years and I never felt unsafe with them. Music schools are no worse than private schools. I was at an independent boarding school before attending the music school, and a lot more was going on there than at the music school. I felt I had better care whilst studying at the specialist music school.

    • Anon says:

      ‘Whilst I was at that school nothing was going on.’ That is demonstrably false, as this enquiry shows.

      ‘I even studied with one of the teachers who has been accused for 9 years and I never felt unsafe with them.’ Thanks for making it crystal clear why feelings are a totally unreliable indication of the truth.

      • Saxon Broken says:

        Anonymous: When you write “nothing was going on”, you mean “I wasn’t aware of anything going on”.

  • Edward says:

    Lots of stuff was going on, dubious to say the least. Not to say that there were not any good apples but, having attended one of those schools, probably the most illustrious of those mentioned, I know first hand the damage that was caused to some of the kids, some of them who never recovered.

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