Boys punished for telling of abuse by teacher (28.03.14)

The Times, 28th March 2014

by Andrew Norfolk

The headmaster of an elite preparatory school punished two pupils for their “wickedness” in reporting serial sexual abuse by a paedophile schoolmaster.

Both were given detention after complaining of indecent assaults regularly committed against boarders at Colet Court, the junior division of St Paul’s School, by its director of music, Alan Doggett.

Doggett, a close friend of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, later became a member of Paedophile Information Exchange, which campaigned in the 1970s to lower the age of consent to 4. Doggett committed suicide when he was charged with sex crimes against another boy, ten years after leaving the prep school.

Many former pupils of Colet Court and St Paul’s, which share a campus in Barnes, southwest London, contacted The Times this week after it was revealed that at least six former teachers, including Doggett, were implicated in numerous sex crimes from the 1960s to the 1980s.

One suspect, Patrick Marshall, 65, who taught at St Paul’s in the late 1970s, was arrested last month and has been bailed pending further police inquiries. He denies any wrongdoing.

Several ex-pupils described Doggett’s routine “fondling” of boys in their beds. Three said they were abused by the choirmaster, who was conductor on the first recordings of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita. Doggett resigned after his abuse was exposed in 1968, but it is understood that St Paul’s did not report the allegations to police or to education officials, which was required by law.

He went on to teach at City of London School and became director of an acclaimed choir before killing himself in 1978.

Stephen (his surname is withheld), the pupil who ended Doggett’s Colet Court career, said that he and a friend decided to speak to the school’s headmaster, Henry Collis, after Doggett indecently assaulted both 11-year-olds as they sat on each side of him during a televised football match in May 1968.

“It was the Manchester United v Benfica European Cup Final. We were sitting on the floor and Doggett’s hands were groping inside our pyjama bottoms.

“He wouldn’t leave us alone. He’d already had a go at me in the dormitory on quite a few occasions,” Stephen said. After the match, the two pupils decided that “he’s got to be stopped”. They informed Mr Collis, who was headmaster of Colet Court from 1957 to 1973 and served as chairman of the Independent Preparatory Schools Association.

Stephen said: “When I next went home on exeat that weekend, the school had telephoned my father to complain that I’d made up terrible stories about Doggett. Dad asked me what had been going on. When I told him, he said he believed me and I’d done the right thing in speaking out, but when I got back to the school the two of us were summoned to Mr Collis’s study.

“I can still see us standing in front of his desk on the Monday morning.He was furious. He said we were wicked for making up such awful lies. Mr Doggett was so appalled and embarrassed by the disgraceful things we’d said that he’d decided to leave the school. We should be thoroughly ashamed of ourselves. He gave us detention.”

Stephen said that another boy in their year suffered far worse crimes at Doggett’s hands: “He had one particular favourite who received regular visits in the dormitory at night. He’d abuse the poor boy without seeming to care that we could all see and watch what was happening.”

Other ex-pupils spoke this week of open gossip among the boys that “half a crown” was the “going rate for a session with Doggett”. One said that his year group even coined a new verb: to be “Doggoed” was to be groped and fondled.

Doggett’s resignation was one of several occasions when St Paul’s allegedly failed to inform police after concerns were raised about sexual misconduct by teachers. Three ex-pupils named Stephen Hale, who taught at Bedford School before joining St Paul’s in the mid-1980s, as the unidentified teacher who was forced to resign after sado-masochistic pornography and a spanking register were found in his room by a school cleaner. The incident was reported in this newspaper on Tuesday.

Inquiries have established that Mr Hale, a maths teacher and boardinghouse tutor, left the school in June 1987, a day after the discovery. St Paul’s merely told the Department for Education that Mr Hale agreed to resign after breaking its rules on corporal http://www.punishment.No suggestion was made of any sexual impropriety. As a result, he was not placed on the national list of teachers barred from working with children. His whereabouts are unknown In a statement earlier this week, St Paul’s described all child abuse as abhorrent and stressed that its current arrangements for pupil safeguarding and welfare are rated as excellent by the Independent Schools Inspectorate.

The school has pledged full co-operation with any investigation into past crimes allegedly committed by teachers who are still alive.

andrew.norfolk@thetimes.co.uk

• Alan Doggett
• Colet Court
• Paedophile Information Exchange
• Patrick Marshall
• St Paul's