The OW magazine, now in electronic version only dropped into my email yesterday. Goven my “mixed” memories of the school I opened it up rather gingerly only to see there was a feature on the 40 year reunion of 1986 leavers. That would be my year.
I have few communications with fellow OWs these days. One was in touch the other week to discuss historic abuse. Younger than me, he recalled a warning given by a PE teacher about the metal bar that ran around the edge of the old outdoor pool. Apparently a boy had been injured after being pushed in with his leg caught behind that bar. That boy, of course, was me.
My ankle was smashed up and has never fully recovered. It was always weak and it collapsed again twice in my twenties on a basketball court and then in the service of London Irish. It ended my rugby career that day. And it still clicks on a cold night. I remember the three boys who pushed me in. One of them, now, like me, 58, was grinning out of that reunion photo. Boy did he love Warwick.
I recognized nearly all the faces. It was a self selecting group. The swots like Mike Hobson and Alan Dee were there. And the jocks like “Bunny” Emens and John Mcullough. If you did not prosper at Warwick if you did not quite fit in you will not go back. I was more the swot but never really liked the other swots. The only OWs who I communicate with and shamefully all too unfrequently are SP and JK both not sporty and, I think they’d both admit, very ,much not academic. Obviously neither of them were there.
I was struck how the faces grinning out of the page were of old men. I suppose my face peering back into my screen is too. Time goes on. I am sure that my absence was welcomed. Those who loved Warwick are all too often in denial about the horrors inflicted on those who were not among the elites, by sadistic bastards like Geoff Eve or paedophiles like Paul Stainsby or Charles Watmough. The elites were not sodomised or did not have their head smashed against a wall so they do not recognize the Warwick that misfits, the sort of boy bad teachers picked upon, suffered. Some of these chosen OWs are in outright denial and have condemned my 15 years of campaigning on this matter and, by implication, me.
On the subject of Stainsby, the September 4 trial was yet again postponed. This is the 4th postponement as Stainsby tries to persuade the judge that he is not mentally fit to stand trial. There is a case management hearing at Warwick Crown Court on 16 October, that is to say Friday, to decide whether the monster is fit to stand trial or not. Stainsby will be there, brought from the jail where he has languished since 2022 after being convicted of serial noncing elsewhere.
At some stage I’d hope that the OW will cover Stainsby, his crimes and how the utter lack of safeguarding in the Boarding House enabled him and, I hope, it will accept that there were other perverts on the staff and invite other victims to come forward for them to achieve closure, for Warwick to accept the truth and its failings and, one hopes, for other prosecutions.
I have few communications with fellow OWs these days. One was in touch the other week to discuss historic abuse. Younger than me, he recalled a warning given by a PE teacher about the metal bar that ran around the edge of the old outdoor pool. Apparently a boy had been injured after being pushed in with his leg caught behind that bar. That boy, of course, was me.
My ankle was smashed up and has never fully recovered. It was always weak and it collapsed again twice in my twenties on a basketball court and then in the service of London Irish. It ended my rugby career that day. And it still clicks on a cold night. I remember the three boys who pushed me in. One of them, now, like me, 58, was grinning out of that reunion photo. Boy did he love Warwick.
I recognized nearly all the faces. It was a self selecting group. The swots like Mike Hobson and Alan Dee were there. And the jocks like “Bunny” Emens and John Mcullough. If you did not prosper at Warwick if you did not quite fit in you will not go back. I was more the swot but never really liked the other swots. The only OWs who I communicate with and shamefully all too unfrequently are SP and JK both not sporty and, I think they’d both admit, very ,much not academic. Obviously neither of them were there.
I was struck how the faces grinning out of the page were of old men. I suppose my face peering back into my screen is too. Time goes on. I am sure that my absence was welcomed. Those who loved Warwick are all too often in denial about the horrors inflicted on those who were not among the elites, by sadistic bastards like Geoff Eve or paedophiles like Paul Stainsby or Charles Watmough. The elites were not sodomised or did not have their head smashed against a wall so they do not recognize the Warwick that misfits, the sort of boy bad teachers picked upon, suffered. Some of these chosen OWs are in outright denial and have condemned my 15 years of campaigning on this matter and, by implication, me.
On the subject of Stainsby, the September 4 trial was yet again postponed. This is the 4th postponement as Stainsby tries to persuade the judge that he is not mentally fit to stand trial. There is a case management hearing at Warwick Crown Court on 16 October, that is to say Friday, to decide whether the monster is fit to stand trial or not. Stainsby will be there, brought from the jail where he has languished since 2022 after being convicted of serial noncing elsewhere.
At some stage I’d hope that the OW will cover Stainsby, his crimes and how the utter lack of safeguarding in the Boarding House enabled him and, I hope, it will accept that there were other perverts on the staff and invite other victims to come forward for them to achieve closure, for Warwick to accept the truth and its failings and, one hopes, for other prosecutions.
If he is not fit to stand trial he is not fit to sue for libel. If he does stand trial the statements from 7 of his victims should get a result. Either way Warwick has no reason to maintain its silence.