The school | Lucky Boy Ep3

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Speaker 19 Tortoise.

Speaker 19 Just a warning before we start. This episode includes descriptions of sexual abuse, strong language, and references to suicide.

Speaker 20 Last time on Lucky Boy, I spoke to the school several times and they didn't need to tell me anything.

Speaker 22 It was just like, they know, they know.

Speaker 24 And I was like, what do you mean they know? How do they know? Like, what do they know?

Speaker 21 And I have no interest in a witch hunt on a teacher about that.

Speaker 25 Yes, I'd say that was confirmation, if ever there was confirmation from the school.

Speaker 19 If the school's covered it up, I think it's maybe because they think it's not a big deal.

Speaker 26 How can a child of 12 make a mature judgment about something like sex for the first time, which it has not the first idea about, and cannot possibly weigh the consequences of it?

Speaker 26 A child is able to recognize a pleasurable experience, he is able to recognize

Speaker 28 a pleasing emotional experience,

Speaker 28 he is able to express consent.

Speaker 19 There's a way I'm beginning to look at this story that separates it into two acts.

Speaker 19 There's Act 1: what's alleged to have happened in the late 1980s between Gareth and Miss Bowen, how it was handled by individual teachers, and the school as an institution.

Speaker 19 That Christ College, it seems, had asked Sally Ann Bowen to quietly move on before the school and everyone left in it moved on too.

Speaker 19 The fact that Gareth Gareth wasn't able to was left as his problem.

Speaker 19 That's the first act.

Speaker 19 And for this part of the story, I'm open to what some of the former pupils have been telling me. That it was a different era with different ideas and moral standards.

Speaker 19 Because children are

Speaker 19 one part of the whole society, it isn't. The early 80s was a time before children's rights were properly fleshed out.

Speaker 19 And that meant that some very dark movements were able to get a foothold in the public conversation.

Speaker 26 Nor is a pedophile. Pedophiles do not exploit children.
Childophiles use

Speaker 26 the child's sexuality. No, pedophiles do not use a child's sexuality.
Pedophiles develop a mutual sexuality with the child. It's an entirely reciprocal relationship.

Speaker 19 A good example? The paedophile information exchange, or PIE as it was known.

Speaker 19 It was a campaign group pushing for the age of consent to be lowered to four years old.

Speaker 19 Pye managed to get coverage on Newsnight on the BBC arguing that paedophiles had been unfairly demonised.

Speaker 27 Our political objectives include developing a society where children are given a much higher status than today, where they are recognised as individuals in their own right, and this includes recognising their right to certain sexual freedoms whilst protecting them.

Speaker 19 When I found this interview and realised it was on the TV just a few years before Gareth's relationship with Miss Bowen, I was shocked.

Speaker 19 It made me realise how far our boundaries have shifted since the 1980s. The idea that a paedophile rights activist would be given a platform like this today, well, it's just unthinkable.

Speaker 19 So, in some ways, Gareth was a casualty of the era he was born into.

Speaker 19 Today, our attitudes towards sexual abuse, victims, and perpetrators are very different,

Speaker 19 or at least we think they are.

Speaker 19 This is when we come to the second act. What's been happening in the last few years since Gareth started his journey towards justice?

Speaker 19 The question I'm asking now is, could it be that Gareth is still a casualty of that time?

Speaker 19 Because what he suspects is that most teachers didn't speak up back then and that they're still keeping the truth hidden today.

Speaker 19 Most teachers, but not everyone.

Speaker 19 I'm Chloe Hajimathay, and from Tortoise, this is Lucky Boy,

Speaker 19 Episode 3: The School.

Speaker 29 He was a very cute looking child and he knew it. And therefore, as a result, he was quite spoilt and used to getting his own way, but he could be a little monster as well.

Speaker 19 Emily's Gareth's older sister. Like Gareth, she's smart and observant, but she's also successful.
She has a good life, a job she loves, and she's a mum to great kids.

Speaker 19 Talking to her is a bit like catching a glimpse of what Gareth's life could have been.

Speaker 19 His mental health issues mean Gareth can't work. And so this investigation and his obsession with proving what really happened pretty much fills his days.

Speaker 29 I think what it's done is fossilised him emotionally.

Speaker 29 And not to have been able to move past it with therapy or whatever it is. That's a terrible damage to have happened to somebody.

Speaker 19 But I've called Emily to ask her about something specific.

Speaker 19 The last few weeks of the relationship between her brother and Sally Ann Bowen, just before it all fell apart.

Speaker 19 Emily wasn't living at home then. She didn't really get on with her mum, Philippa.
So after she left to go to uni, she never went back.

Speaker 29 I didn't have a relationship with my mother at all, which is why I knew when she called me out of the blue, it was like,

Speaker 29 okay, something must be up.

Speaker 19 When that call comes in the summer of 1988, Emily's in Manchester living with friends and she doesn't have a clue what's been going on with Gareth and his teacher. Were you shocked? Were you shocked

Speaker 19 when she told you?

Speaker 29 Absolutely. When I heard it, it was just like, wow.

Speaker 29 What kind of school is it? And why is it not being stopped?

Speaker 19 Philippa tells her that Christ College School has taken action, that Miss Bowen has been asked to leave and won't teach again. But the problem hasn't gone away.

Speaker 19 Because what she suspects is that the long, empty summer holidays present lots of free time for Gareth and Miss Bowen to meet and have sex.

Speaker 19 So in a moment of desperation, she calls her estranged daughter Emily.

Speaker 29 Really, it was like, you know, in extremis,

Speaker 29 you do something to help, don't you?

Speaker 19 There's no particular plan, just the idea that a bit of space away from London might be enough to break the pair up. So they send Gareth to stay with his sister in Manchester.

Speaker 19 When Emily collects her brother from the coach station, she tries probing him, but he won't admit anything.

Speaker 19 And then, only days into his stay, one of Emily's flatmates tells her her some strange lady's been calling on the phone for her brother.

Speaker 19 She knows it must be Miss Bowen.

Speaker 29 I mean, you know, this woman was only a couple of years older than me. And the thought

Speaker 29 that somebody who was a couple of years older than me was kind of fancying my baby brother and sleeping with my baby brother was quite repellent to me.

Speaker 19 So that weekend, Emily waits for the phone to ring. And And before her brother can get to it, she picks up.

Speaker 29 She asked to speak to my brother and I went, oh, okay. Well, you're speaking to his sister.
And I know who you are. And I basically told her where to go.
And I think I said something about,

Speaker 29 leave my little brother alone.

Speaker 29 And that was it.

Speaker 19 There are so many things I wish Emily had asked her. Like, why did she think it was okay to have sex with a child? And why was she still contacting him, even after it seemed to have cost her her job?

Speaker 19 But in that moment, Emily's too angry to think rationally. She says her piece and then hangs up without waiting for a response.

Speaker 29 And it was kind of the brazenness of it, really. of assuming that I wouldn't recognise the name, which now I think about it was extraordinarily stupid really, wasn't it? Or was it just so brazen?

Speaker 19 I'm still trying to wrap my head around who Miss Bowen is.

Speaker 19 On one level, it seems she knows that having sex with a child is illegal and wrong, or at least socially unacceptable, because Gareth says she keeps warning him to be careful and not tell anyone.

Speaker 19 But then, she acts like they're an ordinary couple, taking him to pubs and openly ringing him for chats when they're apart. In any case, the Manchester plan hasn't worked.

Speaker 19 Gareth packs his bag and heads back to London, where his mum Philippa tries one last tactic.

Speaker 20 I had a route around and I found the phone number and I rang up and I asked to speak to her and I said to her that the whole thing had to stop and that it was ridiculous.

Speaker 20 And she said, oh, nothing's been going on, nothing's been going on. And I said, okay, I said, I'll speak to the police about it.
And then she never said another word to me and put the phone down.

Speaker 20 That was it.

Speaker 19 She may have threatened to go to the police, but actually, with both Gareth and his teacher denying it all, Philippa doesn't feel she's got enough evidence.

Speaker 19 But it's possible that just the threat has an effect. Because at some point, not long after, Miss Bowen decides to end the relationship.

Speaker 19 How did she tell you?

Speaker 30 She told me she was going to

Speaker 25 kibbutz in Israel.

Speaker 19 So she didn't say we have to stop because this is wrong or the school's found out or she was also she told me when the school found out.

Speaker 19 But when she ended it she said I'm ending it because I'm going to a kibbutz in Israel and I don't know when I'll be back.

Speaker 17 Yeah.

Speaker 19 They have sex one last time

Speaker 19 and then Miss Bowen closes the door on her 15-year-old lover.

Speaker 19 How did you feel? Were you devastated?

Speaker 17 Yeah, obviously.

Speaker 16 But also, at the same time, being devastated, not being able to...

Speaker 17 It never happened, right?

Speaker 16 What's there to be devastated about?

Speaker 23 That was a reality for me. Like, I had to swallow that on my own, kind of thing, right?

Speaker 19 That's when he really starts to unravel.

Speaker 19 Because he may be physically equipped to have sex, but he definitely isn't equipped to deal with the emotional fallout.

Speaker 19 The next time he'll see Miss Bowen will be 35 years later, when he's a man of 50 and she's in her mid-60s. But this time, they won't be alone.

Speaker 19 Just days after Miss Bowen tells him she's going away, Gareth's back at school. A new term started at Christ College.
This thing that he had that was so special and awe-consuming, it's over.

Speaker 19 He's angry and hurt. And to make matters worse, Miss Bowen may be gone, but the rumours are still there.

Speaker 23 I got in fights because boys called her a slag in front of me.

Speaker 23 Like, because I would think

Speaker 25 they were trying to get at me.

Speaker 19 I heard about this one fight that happened outside school. I hadn't really realised how bad it was until I asked Gareth about it.

Speaker 32 And then where did the flight happen?

Speaker 22 In Edgeware Tube Station off the tube, you know, where to buy the tickets.

Speaker 19 By this time, we're talking on the phone almost every day.

Speaker 19 What it took me a while to realise is that Gareth records every single call he makes. He's pretty paranoid, and so he wants a meticulous record of what everyone said to him.

Speaker 19 I don't know if he's always been like that, but I suspect it's the result of all the gaslighting he feels he's been through.

Speaker 19 When he eventually confesses to me that he's been recording all our calls, he thinks I'll be upset, but I'm making a podcast, so I'm actually pretty delighted. And I make him send me all the files.

Speaker 19 This particular day, I've called him to ask about that awful fight.

Speaker 31 And I've got in my notes that he spoke to you about Bowen.

Speaker 22 I think someone was discussing Boweny where, oh, Bowen's just

Speaker 22 a slag.

Speaker 25 But yeah, it used to piss me off if someone said that in front of me about Bowen.

Speaker 32 And he was quite badly hurt.

Speaker 22 Yeah, I believe so.

Speaker 22 Not my proudest moment.

Speaker 32 And like, what you really hurt him?

Speaker 33 Yeah, I think I split his skull open.

Speaker 34 Oh, fucking hell.

Speaker 17 Yeah.

Speaker 22 I think I actually stamped on his head, Chloe.

Speaker 22 If you really want to know the truth.

Speaker 22 It sounded like a fucking shotgun going off.

Speaker 33 Like I said, proud this moment.

Speaker 17 Gareth's out of control.

Speaker 19 Still, he says the school never tries to find out what's going on with him. None of the teachers ever mention Miss Bowen to him again.

Speaker 19 Just before Christmas, the school calls his parents in to say if they don't remove Gareth voluntarily, then the school will expel him.

Speaker 19 They quietly got rid of Miss Bowen. Now they've quietly got rid of her alleged victim too.

Speaker 19 The Gareth I've come to know over the last year is a highly perceptive and intelligent man.

Speaker 19 But he's also someone with anxieties and paranoia. I can see that.

Speaker 19 But what I couldn't initially put my finger on was how exactly his relationship with an adult woman had led to the problems he has today.

Speaker 30 Well, obviously, it had an effect on me.

Speaker 23 I mean, we all all know that.

Speaker 30 We all know that a young boy at 14 years old having sex with a 27-year-old teacher, that's going to have a certain effect on him.

Speaker 19 Miss Bowen normalised her desires before Gareth could even begin to explore and understand his own.

Speaker 19 And he says some of her desires were quite kinky. But Gareth wouldn't have known that.
He had nothing to compare it to.

Speaker 19 So then, when it came to girls his own age, his expectations would often be frightening for them.

Speaker 25 Sex isn't an emotional thing to me.

Speaker 25 I don't engage my fucking emotions.

Speaker 25 Sex is a physical act to me.

Speaker 17 Then that's not right.

Speaker 25 But when you're introduced to sex the way I was introduced to sex, that the sexual act isn't some kind of secret that's held in a little box where your emotions must stop now because we can't express anything outside this room.

Speaker 19 By the time he's 16, Gareth's relationship with his mum has broken down completely. All the lies have poisoned things between them and she asks him to leave home.

Speaker 19 At this point, Gareth's in a really bad way.

Speaker 24 That's where self-harm comes from as well. I was putting out cigarettes on my hands from when I was 16.
I was cutting myself.

Speaker 24 And it led up to like three suicide attempts before I was 23.

Speaker 24 But I still have the urges.

Speaker 19 I've spoken to a lawyer. He and his firm have represented thousands of sexual abuse survivors in legal cases against all sorts of institutions.
He's even worked with victims of Jimmy Savile.

Speaker 19 And he tells me the average age for his clients to come forward, particularly male clients, is between 35 and 50 years old.

Speaker 19 It often takes more than a quarter of a century before they're ready to face what happened to them.

Speaker 19 When his moment comes, Gareth's in his early 40s. Bang on average.

Speaker 19 He's spent decades holding his secret. He's never admitted it to his mum, though he has confided in a couple of girlfriends and then his wife.

Speaker 19 For years, it's actually been a point of pride that his first relationship was with a much older teacher at school.

Speaker 25 In my mind, for many years, like,

Speaker 16 that wasn't really her fault.

Speaker 37 In fact, I probably took blame for it because, you know,

Speaker 17 you know, I walked her home, I pursued her.

Speaker 18 If you like, I didn't have to walk her home, It must have been my fault.

Speaker 23 And I still do that today.

Speaker 16 I still, it's automatic.

Speaker 19 But things shift. He meets and marries his current partner, someone who's been his rock over the years.
And he adopts her two children when they're still quite young.

Speaker 19 Fatherhood's something he enjoys and is good at.

Speaker 19 And it's also something that changes his perceptions.

Speaker 24 My son became 14, and I could still see his little dimples and his stupid face. All he wanted to do is go and get home and play Xbox with me.
Like,

Speaker 24 that hit me hard. I remember thinking, naturally, this woman wasn't your girlfriend, mate.
She was sick.

Speaker 24 Because what kind of woman's interested in this boy here?

Speaker 16 But when I found out that she was teaching, I think I found her on a website for a school.

Speaker 23 Now, when I found that out, oh no, that's when I got pissy.

Speaker 19 The assurance Gareth's mum says the school gave her back in 1988 that Sally Ann Bowen wouldn't teach again,

Speaker 19 it wasn't true.

Speaker 19 It's taken Gareth a quarter of a century to realise.

Speaker 25 You've got to remember, up until that point, I still felt guilty that someone who'd gone to university trained as a teacher had lost their job forever.

Speaker 25 That's what I was told, that's what I believed up until 2014, right? Up until then.

Speaker 19 There isn't one event that tips the scales for him.

Speaker 19 It's more a slow drip of new information seen through the shifting lens of a more experienced, older man.

Speaker 19 But the day finally arrives when Gareth's ready to do what his mum wanted to do all those years ago. He picks up the phone and calls the police.

Speaker 19 This is when Gareth's story reaches its second act.

Speaker 19 Did you think she might deny it, or did you think she'd admit it?

Speaker 23 I didn't know.

Speaker 25 To a certain degree, I think so.

Speaker 19 You thought she would admit it.

Speaker 19 Did you imagine what she would?

Speaker 17 I hoped she would.

Speaker 19 Gareth understands now that he's been badly harmed by what happened to him after Miss Bowen left.

Speaker 19 He knows the relationship knocked his life off course, but at the same time he still clings to the idea that what he and Miss Bowen had was something special.

Speaker 19 So when he goes to the police he hopes she might take responsibility for what happened back then, perhaps put it down to a moment of madness.

Speaker 19 That's not what happens.

Speaker 25 I mean, Bowen, by the days that go by, I get angrier and angrier.

Speaker 19 But you're angry with her for lying?

Speaker 25 Yeah,

Speaker 18 of course I'm angry because

Speaker 25 if she gets her way,

Speaker 23 and

Speaker 25 I'm turned into the most heinous kind of liar there is

Speaker 25 the most not just someone that lied over thieving from a shop, someone that's tried to appropriate the victim of a child abuse victim

Speaker 25 because she won't accept what she did.

Speaker 19 This is 2015, and by now Gareth's Gareth's in his 40s. And after finally going to the police, he's not being believed.

Speaker 19 So now, it's on him to prove he hasn't made the whole thing up.

Speaker 19 The police investigation begins consuming his empty days. He makes long lists of all the teachers he remembers.
Each one he's sure can vouch for the fact that he had a thing with Miss Bowen.

Speaker 19 The police start calling round and speaking to dozens of teachers. Des Tinch, the head of year who his mother spoke to.

Speaker 19 Heather McIsak, Miss Bowen's friend, who told him she didn't agree with the relationship. And lots of others.
And each time they get hold of someone, they call Gareth to update him.

Speaker 16 Yeah, there were blows. Each one was a blow.

Speaker 19 None of them are prepared to say, I saw Gareth with her, or I saw, you know, I knew this stuff was going on.

Speaker 24 But... It's a bit hard though, isn't it?

Speaker 19 Because they would have to

Speaker 24 admit.

Speaker 17 Right, how do you have to admit that they saw it happening and they did nothing?

Speaker 25 How do you say that?

Speaker 16 How do you say I knew?

Speaker 25 I knew and I did nothing.

Speaker 30 And you're a teacher.

Speaker 24 No, you can't. But they did know.

Speaker 19 The police get hold of one teacher, William Roach, who tells them he remembers rumours going around the staff room about Miss Bowen and a student, but he can't remember the kid's name.

Speaker 19 And an English teacher, Mick Gray, says he remembers Miss Bowen as as being very flirty and that there were lots of rumours going around the staff and pupils that there was something going on between her and Gareth.

Speaker 19 Mr Gray hadn't actually witnessed anything himself other than an occasion at the end of term when Gareth and Miss Bowen were both at the same pub.

Speaker 19 By then, Gareth says Miss Bowen had become so brazen about their relationship that in a final act on her last day at the school, she took him with her to end-of-year staff drinks.

Speaker 19 The couple sat at their own table in full view of a whole gang of staff. But when the police tried to find witnesses, everyone they spoke to claimed not to have been there.

Speaker 19 Now I'm working my own way down that list of teachers. It's not easy.
Some have changed their names after getting married. Others have no online footprint at all, or they've died.

Speaker 19 And lots of those I do find have no interest in engaging with with me at all.

Speaker 34 Look, to be honest I don't really want to get involved in it.

Speaker 19 Is there any reason for that? I mean there's a public

Speaker 19 former I have to say I'm pretty shocked by some of the responses.

Speaker 19 It's one thing for former pupils to say they don't want to be involved but these are teachers, some of whom, like this guy, still work with children.

Speaker 19 I expected them to feel a certain responsibility to help with an investigation into potential child abuse that may have happened on their watch.

Speaker 34 Really, I'm sort of the last person, or virtually the last person, you should be asking.

Speaker 32 Well, I think anybody who was there.

Speaker 22 Well, maybe, but

Speaker 34 I don't want to be involved.

Speaker 32 Okay.

Speaker 22 Sorry about that, but I don't want to get involved.

Speaker 32 No problem. All the best.

Speaker 19 Gareth did try to prepare me for it, but still, the uniformity of the response took me by surprise.

Speaker 32 I mean, I think what's outrageous about it is how many.

Speaker 17 But you would

Speaker 33 one or two.

Speaker 24 Heather McKysak would be a good one if you could get her to talk, by the way.

Speaker 21 Yeah. Because she was her best friend.

Speaker 24 I mean, it's a rare, pretty rare name.

Speaker 19 Heather McIsak.

Speaker 19 The only teacher who Gareth says ever confronted him back then.

Speaker 19 These days she teaches in Scotland. I managed to trace her through a hockey club she belongs to.

Speaker 19 And she tells me what she told the police a few years before, that even though she and Sally Ann Bowen were such good friends, she had absolutely no knowledge of the rumours, and that if she had, she would have reported Miss Bowen immediately.

Speaker 19 The conversation in the corridor when she apparently told Gareth she knew about the relationship, it didn't happen, she says.

Speaker 19 But when I tell her everything Gareth's been through since, she says she wants to apologise to him, that she's embarrassed she didn't protect him, because he was vulnerable, and she could see that at the time.

Speaker 19 Even though she says she can't remember any of it, she does seem open to the idea of an interview, and when I tell Gareth he's excited, at least she's engaging.

Speaker 19 But the next day, Heather McKysak emails again.

Speaker 33 Come on, tell me.

Speaker 32 She just said she's very worried that, you know, she's still teaching, and she's worried that association will taint her in some way.

Speaker 31 Oh, I can't remember.

Speaker 22 Like, I mean, Mikai, whatever, that's all I say to you. I can still remember, you know, when she said that to me and she stood there and she looked at me and then the staff room door.

Speaker 22 The old wooden staff room door.

Speaker 19 It's difficult for Gareth to swallow that so many people are contradicting his memories.

Speaker 22 They knew.

Speaker 36 They all knew.

Speaker 22 I mean, how can the kids know and the staff not? Something went on in that school. Why did they get away with that?

Speaker 18 They got away with Chicago.

Speaker 19 Gareth starts thinking that there's something coordinated going on,

Speaker 19 a concerted effort by the teachers to protect themselves and the school. There's no evidence for that, and frankly, it sounds a bit paranoid.

Speaker 19 Except, we now know there is a historical precedent here, that institutions like schools have covered up sexual abuse to avoid a scandal, particularly those that feel they have a reputation to preserve.

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Speaker 17 You haven't read it yet?

Speaker 19 I haven't read it. I haven't read it.
I have no idea what it says. I've been waiting for you and I feel like it's...

Speaker 19 I thought we should read it together, but it is slightly different. I'm working from home and I've just jumped on a call with my producer, Gary, because there's been a development.

Speaker 19 Phoebe from the office just sent me a WhatsApp photo of a large envelope that arrived in the post for me today. And so I said, just open it.
I can't possibly wait. And she said, oh, it's very long.

Speaker 19 And I said, I just don't care. Get to the name at the end.
What's the name at the end? Because, you know, obviously I feel like I've sent out a hundred odd letters. So I have no idea.
The name is Mr.

Speaker 19 D. Tinch, Des Tinch, Gareth's head of year.

Speaker 19 I'd be happy to hear from anyone, but Mr Tinch is near the top of my list.

Speaker 19 He's the teacher that Gareth's mum Philippa says she called in distress when she heard the rumours about Gareth and Miss Bowen.

Speaker 19 The same teacher who apparently told her the problem would be going away because Sally Ann Bowen was leaving the school.

Speaker 19 I've sent him a couple of letters and now he's replied with two long pages covered in flawless swirly writing. And he set out his response in neat, numbered paragraphs.

Speaker 37 Yeah, I've got it.

Speaker 38 I'll just read it aloud first, and then we can talk about it.

Speaker 19 My producer, Gary, starts picking through it.

Speaker 38 One

Speaker 38 at no point did any pupil, parent, colleague, or senior manager ever confide in me, at the time or thereafter, regarding the allegations you planned to report.

Speaker 38 Had they done so, I would have made an intervention and reported it.

Speaker 37 The pupils you site would recognise this trait in me.

Speaker 19 He says Miss Bowen was an econoclast, a rebel woman pushing boundaries in a male-dominated school.

Speaker 38 Number four,

Speaker 38 if there was an internal investigation, then it was private and I was not privy to it.

Speaker 19 He says he never heard any rumours.

Speaker 19 The headmaster at the time, Brian Fletcher, who Sally Ann Bowen told Gareth was one of the men who confronted her about the relationship and then terminated her contract.

Speaker 19 He was a well-respected and beloved leader of the school, he says.

Speaker 37 He would have acted if it had involved one of my year group.

Speaker 38 He would have questioned me and asked me to investigate further.

Speaker 17 He didn't.

Speaker 38 With respect, I do not wish to be contacted again.

Speaker 37 Yours sincerely, D.

Speaker 38 Tinch.

Speaker 19 I mean, that

Speaker 19 is a pretty robust response to what we have said.

Speaker 17 Yeah.

Speaker 19 It's, you know, on the face of it, it feels

Speaker 19 pretty persuasive. I have to say, if I hadn't spoken to Gareth and if I hadn't been speaking to him for so many months, I would find that really persuasive.

Speaker 19 The problem is that

Speaker 19 Gareth's mum is absolutely sure she spoke to him.

Speaker 19 The letter's shaken me a bit. Could Gareth and the woman in his family have got this all wrong somehow?

Speaker 19 So I go back to the only physical piece of evidence from the time.

Speaker 19 That note the family GP took after speaking with Gareth's mum, in which it's clear she spoke to the school about the affair with his teacher.

Speaker 35 In the document that she has from the time,

Speaker 35 it says she spoke to the school, not specifically

Speaker 35 Des Tinch.

Speaker 19 I don't think it says specifically Des Tinch. Her memory is of Des Tinch.

Speaker 19 I'm pretty sure Gareth's going to have a really strong reaction to Mr. Tinch's letter, but I brace myself and I send him a copy.

Speaker 19 A couple of days later, he comes into the studio armed with several A4 pages of notes. He spends hours clinically dissecting what he takes issue with line by line, until eventually he needs a break.

Speaker 19 Go have a fag first.

Speaker 24 Thank you. Okay.

Speaker 19 It's only when he stands up to leave that he finally opens up.

Speaker 21 And the thing is, I was so upset.

Speaker 36 I know you are. I sent it to my mum and my sister and said, Fucking like,

Speaker 30 what do you think?

Speaker 19 Sit down for a sec, sit down.

Speaker 19 Gary, are you still recording?

Speaker 19 I just tell me about your mum, just very quickly.

Speaker 18 I don't know what my mum said, but she wrote, What I can't understand is this: what's the point in lying at his time of life?

Speaker 36 He is a bad man.

Speaker 36 My mother doesn't call people

Speaker 24 bad.

Speaker 36 I can't see how he doesn't remember calling me in to see him.

Speaker 36 Hello there. Hi, it's Chloe.

Speaker 36 Yeah, you tried to phone me, didn't you?

Speaker 19 Yes, I did. Thanks so much for getting back to me.

Speaker 19 There's a secret to investigations that most people don't bang on about because it's not very glamorous. It's that you have to be prepared to have lots of really boring, disappointing days.

Speaker 19 And if you can stick at that long enough, sometimes you hit the jackpot. Right.

Speaker 19 I'm telling you this because I think it was typical of Miss Bowen.

Speaker 19 This is someone who was on the staff when this whole story with Miss Bowen was playing out. He's an interesting person, but I can tell you almost nothing about him because he's been very clear.

Speaker 19 He doesn't want to be recorded and he definitely does not want to be identified. I'm calling him George and these are my recollections of our conversation based on notes I took at the time.

Speaker 19 So not word for word but pretty close. And he's given me permission to have them read by an actor.

Speaker 19 Would you like a graphic example of something she said to me once?

Speaker 31 I'd love that.

Speaker 34 All right, one day I was in the staff room and she was at the other end.

Speaker 34 And she suddenly called across the room and I realised she was trying to get my attention.

Speaker 34 She shouted,

Speaker 34 Hey, what are you doing with your hands under the table?

Speaker 34 What was she insinuating? Well, very obviously was, you know,

Speaker 34 you're masturbating.

Speaker 34 Which was stupid, obviously, but that's the kind of level she was on.

Speaker 34 And I just had this sense that she was headed for trouble.

Speaker 19 I've heard similar stories about Miss Bowen from some of the former pupils I've spoken to.

Speaker 19 One guy told me that during class one day, Miss Bowen took out these Indian-style paintings in which a couple was posing in different sexual positions. It was the Karma Sutra.

Speaker 19 He assumed she was giving them some kind of sex education lesson. And, he says, she seemed to really enjoy how shocked the boys were.

Speaker 19 But this is the first time I'm hearing that she she behaved that way with members of staff. Maybe because I haven't managed to speak to many of them.

Speaker 19 So they're not responding to me and the few I've spoken to I think they probably at very least knew the rumours and they're not even willing to admit that.

Speaker 19 I think it's pretty unlikely that they didn't know about the rumours.

Speaker 34 Yeah I'd probably agree with you on that.

Speaker 19 Then George tells me something really interesting.

Speaker 19 That there was a group of female teachers from the English department who were trying to do something about the fact that a colleague of theirs seemed very interested in a 14-year-old boy.

Speaker 19 There were members of staff who were concerned, and I know there were some women in the English department who would have been unhappy with what Miss Bowen was doing.

Speaker 19 They were trying to help her.

Speaker 19 I know that's very vague, but they were.

Speaker 19 Another teacher I spoke to told me that a colleague of of hers did know what really went on back then, but that she and others deliberately kept it within a tight circle and withheld everything they knew from the police.

Speaker 19 I tried to find that teacher, but she died a few years ago, so I can't ask her about it.

Speaker 19 What I find fascinating is that these teachers were trying to intervene, but I can't help wondering if they were trying to help Gareth or Sally Ann Bowen.

Speaker 19 And why didn't they think to report it?

Speaker 19 Could it be that although on one level they knew the relationship was problematic, they just didn't see what was going on between this attractive young woman and her willing pupil as abuse?

Speaker 19 I guess you could call me a coward, but I don't want my former colleagues to think badly of me.

Speaker 19 There's a closing of ranks, then and now.

Speaker 19 I mean, I think the school was terrible if they allowed Miss Bowen to go on and teach for 35 years. That's awful.

Speaker 19 So, it seems there were members of staff who did know and have hidden it from the authorities. Gareth's right.

Speaker 19 Whether or not you want to call it a cover-up, teachers have put their own reputations and the schools before anything else.

Speaker 19 And holding back the truth has allowed Sally Ann Bowen to continue teaching for 35 years.

Speaker 19 Three

Speaker 19 during which any one of the teachers who knew could have reported her.

Speaker 19 Instead, in 2020, six years after he first called the police to press charges, Gareth gets a call. It's the detective in charge of the investigation.

Speaker 19 He tells him that the Crown Prosecution Service has reached a final decision.

Speaker 19 Without any witnesses who are prepared to talk, there just isn't enough evidence for it to go to a jury, so they're dropping the case.

Speaker 19 And where's Sally Ann Bowen at this point? Well she's head of science at a secondary school just 30 minutes drive from Christ College. I've seen her CV.

Speaker 19 She spent years jumping from one school to another, sometimes only staying a few months. 13 different schools in all until she landed this last position.

Speaker 19 And all those secondary schools? Multiple opportunities to repeat the behaviour.

Speaker 19 The problem was pushed on from Christ College, but had it really gone away?

Speaker 19 There are so many schools she's taught at, though, none of which I have a connection to, so where to start?

Speaker 19 It turns out, I don't have to look that far.

Speaker 19 Coming up on Lucky Boy.

Speaker 30 And he said to me, you're not the only one.

Speaker 19 And then, what happened?

Speaker 38 It's fair to say things started getting a little bit more inappropriate, but I remember those words, you're not the only one.

Speaker 19 Lucky Boy is reported by me, Chloe Hajimathayu. The producer is Gary Marshall.
Additional production from Rebecca Moore. Sound design is by Hannah Varrell.
Original music by Tom Kinsella.

Speaker 19 Podcast artwork by Lola Williams. The voice actors are Steve King and James Shield.
The executive producer is Basha Cummings.

Speaker 19 If you or someone you know has experienced the issues covered in this episode, there are places you can reach out to.

Speaker 19 If you have any concerns about a child, then you can contact the NSPCC's helpline by calling 0808-800-5000 or emailing help at nsppcc.org.uk or visiting their website.

Speaker 19 Children can contact Childline and talk to an impartial counsellor. No concern is too big or small to discuss.
Simply call 0800-1111 or visit their website for a one-to-one chat.

Speaker 19 For general concerns or talk, adults can contact the Samaritans on 116-123 or email joe at samaritans.org. That's jo at samaritans.org.

Speaker 19 Tortoise.

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