School staff were well aware that one of their colleagues had crossed professional boundaries with Alba
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Alba describes how as an anxious young girl, she developed a ‘crush’ on a female teacher who was married and in her 40s.
This teacher exploited the situation, groomed Alba and then sexually abused her, telling her pupil that she had started the ‘relationship’.
Alba attended a private girls’ school.
She describes herself as ‘shy, scared and introverted’, and although she was able and talented, she often felt anxious about her abilities.
When she was 12, Alba had a female teacher called Mrs White, who made a point of sharing details of her personal and family life, and encouraging pupils to do the same. Alba began spending time alone with Mrs White. ‘She was my trusted and adored teacher who I felt I could confide in’ Alba says, adding that she thinks Mrs White was aware she had a ‘crush’ on her.
Over the following few years, Mrs White continued to teach Alba, and offered her extra one-to-one tuition. Alba says she felt their interactions were ‘odd’ and that the teacher was sometimes nasty to her.
When Alba was 15, Mrs White asked her parents if Alba could join her on holiday. Alba’s mother instantly refused, and later found letters that Mrs White had written to Alba. She handed the letters over to the school head.
By the next year, Mrs White was inviting Alba to her home when her husband and child were not there. The teacher started holding and kissing Alba. She asked Alba if she was worried she was a lesbian. Alba now feels this was a way of ‘deflecting her own involvement in what was going on’.
The abuse escalated to sexual touching. Alba describes how she sobbed in shock and disbelief the first time this happened. She says the teacher often said ‘I touched her first’ and this made Alba feel that the abuse was her fault.
Alba says she became isolated from her friends because of the secret she was carrying. ‘I stopped talking to people so they wouldn’t ask me questions.’ The abuse occurred several times a week. Mrs White would tell Alba she loved her, that it was ‘fine’ because Alba was 16, but she emphasised that Alba must not tell anyone what was happening.
As she became more overwhelmed and isolated, Alba says she felt she ‘needed’ Mrs White more. Her school work became ‘chaotic’ and she sometimes self-harmed.
She knows that her parents complained to the headteacher about Mrs White and tried to stop her seeing their daughter outside school. She adds that several teachers saw how much time she spent with Mrs White, and some made sarcastic comments about this.
Mrs White told Alba that some school staff had been made to sign documents agreeing they would not ‘gossip’ about her and Alba having an ‘improper relationship’.
Alba is not sure exactly how much her parents knew but says they were aware something was very wrong. She believes they did their best to stop it, but now she is an adult, she understands how difficult it must have been.
Her mum was treated by the school as ‘troublesome’, and the only concern of the headteacher was to protect the reputation of the school.
Alba went to a good university, but continued to be isolated from her peers and struggled with her mental health. After she left, she says she felt ‘unemployable and did not want to be seen’. She did mundane jobs for several years, and took medication to try and ease her anxiety.
She has since had counselling and now works with young people. She feels strongly that all concerns about professional boundaries being breached should be reported and investigated impartially.
Alba would also like to see more information included in safeguarding training about female-perpetrated sexual abuse.
For a long time, Alba says, she found it hard to settle and put down roots, but now has good friends who are supportive. She has talked to her family about the abuse, and says ‘It was a relief to feel I was no longer carrying this huge secret’.