So far I have named Alan Wilkins, David Stuke, Charles Watmough, mr X ( under a Police Enquiry) and Paul Stainsby (on trial) as Warwick School paedophiles. In a way the sixth perpetrator of historic sex abuse I name, David Nichols, is the most significant. His case shows how the crimes of others were covered up and also flags up what happened in the boarding house.
I only boarded in my final year. As a day boy you had no idea of what went on in the warren of rooms that housed perhaps a tenth of Warwick School pupils. By the time boys reached the sixth form it was, I think, safe enough. David Stuke might run his hands under the sheets of a younger boy or try, as he did, to join him in the bath. But had he tried it on with some rugger playing 18 year old brute he would have taken an almighty beating.
The older boys had “served their time” as younger boys and, as I was reminded by one such boy at the weekend, would warn new entrants to the boarding house to be wary of certain teachers such as Stuke and also of David Nichols, a man known as “picker” and now dead.
I only boarded in my final year. As a day boy you had no idea of what went on in the warren of rooms that housed perhaps a tenth of Warwick School pupils. By the time boys reached the sixth form it was, I think, safe enough. David Stuke might run his hands under the sheets of a younger boy or try, as he did, to join him in the bath. But had he tried it on with some rugger playing 18 year old brute he would have taken an almighty beating.
The older boys had “served their time” as younger boys and, as I was reminded by one such boy at the weekend, would warn new entrants to the boarding house to be wary of certain teachers such as Stuke and also of David Nichols, a man known as “picker” and now dead.
My memories of “picker”, as a day boy, were happy ones. There was a way of dodging a double lesson with the CCF which involved sitting music theory exams and about eight of us spent a happy two years doing just that. Little Merson was quite a musical fellow. The rest of us were not. I had failed Grade 1 piano. But “picker” taught us well and with enthusiasm we all passed Grades 1 to V in an enjoyable two years. Now and again, after celebrating collective success in an exam we’d all taken, we’d spent the double period that followed playing soccer with “picker” out on the fields beyond the isolated pre-fab block on the edge of the school that was the music department. Surely that was far better than marching up and down as toy soldiers?
And as such, when a reliable witness told me a while back of seeing “picker” taking great pleasure in spanking the naked bottom of a younger boy as the poor lad climbed out of the bath, I suppose I put it to the back of my mind. That was a mistake for which I apologise. Matters that have been brought to my attention this last weekend make me view this in a whole new light.
There is firstly the issue of the boarding house. Stuke prowled its corridors while Wilkins did the same in the junior boarding house. Stainsby lived in the Headmaster’s House next door to the senior boarding house to which he had full access. Surely this begs real questions as to how other masters in the House, such as Nichols, cannot have been aware of wrong doing. But with Nichols there is a bigger question: the music department.
Mr X, who I cannot name as he is currently under Police investigation, was appointed by Nichols as a music teacher. When a parent complained about Mr X molesting a boy, the teacher was summonsed to a meeting with the Head Master at which Nichols attended and spoke up for Mr X saying it was all a misunderstanding. Mr X got off and carried on teaching.
Nichols also appointed Charles Watmough – where a sixth victim came forward this week – and when Watmough was also the subject of a parental complaint somehow it was decided by his line managers that there was no case to answer. Was Nichols also involved in that cover up? Does Warwick care or has it lost those records as it has conveniently lost all those relating to the sadistic bastard Geoffrey Eve?
And as such, when a reliable witness told me a while back of seeing “picker” taking great pleasure in spanking the naked bottom of a younger boy as the poor lad climbed out of the bath, I suppose I put it to the back of my mind. That was a mistake for which I apologise. Matters that have been brought to my attention this last weekend make me view this in a whole new light.
There is firstly the issue of the boarding house. Stuke prowled its corridors while Wilkins did the same in the junior boarding house. Stainsby lived in the Headmaster’s House next door to the senior boarding house to which he had full access. Surely this begs real questions as to how other masters in the House, such as Nichols, cannot have been aware of wrong doing. But with Nichols there is a bigger question: the music department.
Mr X, who I cannot name as he is currently under Police investigation, was appointed by Nichols as a music teacher. When a parent complained about Mr X molesting a boy, the teacher was summonsed to a meeting with the Head Master at which Nichols attended and spoke up for Mr X saying it was all a misunderstanding. Mr X got off and carried on teaching.
Nichols also appointed Charles Watmough – where a sixth victim came forward this week – and when Watmough was also the subject of a parental complaint somehow it was decided by his line managers that there was no case to answer. Was Nichols also involved in that cover up? Does Warwick care or has it lost those records as it has conveniently lost all those relating to the sadistic bastard Geoffrey Eve?
And so Watmough, in the end, left Warwick to go and give private piano lessons in his house in Scarborough. Nichols retired and went to live close by to his old friend ..in Scarborough.
Warwick School, in as much as it has admitted to anything, seems to want us to believe that it might just have suffered the odd bad apple, the odd lone wolf on its staff. In not openly admitting that there was a widespread problem it has, of course, made it less likely that victims would come forward. And so I suspect that there are many more OWs out there who were abused.
But there is surely enough to now believe that Warwick predators did not act alone and that together they were able to protect each other and cover up various crimes. Will Warwick concede that thus is even a possibility?
My first hope is that the Stainsby case will see more victims and witnesses to the crimes of other teachers come forward. My second hope is that the Police and the School start to join the dots that link Mr X to Nichols to Watmough and that the case against Watmough now be reopened as a result.
Warwick School, in as much as it has admitted to anything, seems to want us to believe that it might just have suffered the odd bad apple, the odd lone wolf on its staff. In not openly admitting that there was a widespread problem it has, of course, made it less likely that victims would come forward. And so I suspect that there are many more OWs out there who were abused.
But there is surely enough to now believe that Warwick predators did not act alone and that together they were able to protect each other and cover up various crimes. Will Warwick concede that thus is even a possibility?
My first hope is that the Stainsby case will see more victims and witnesses to the crimes of other teachers come forward. My second hope is that the Police and the School start to join the dots that link Mr X to Nichols to Watmough and that the case against Watmough now be reopened as a result.
My third hope, but not expectation, is that Warwick makes a full mea culpa to the scale of what went on and its failures to safeguard. And that rather than just emailing those OWS’s on its list, the rugger hearty’s who loved their days there smelling each other’s jockstraps, it reaches out with adverts in the local and regional press to those of us who have every reason to detest the place and are thus not on an OW mailing list.