Danni feels guilty that the teacher who sexually abused her was allowed to work at another school
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Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
When Danni reported abuse by a teacher, the school told her parents not to tell the police.
She feels strongly that private schools should not put their reputation before the welfare of children.
Danni’s father worked in different locations overseas, so her parents decided to send her to boarding school when she was 11 years old.
She hated the school. ‘I was really homesick and lonely and I wasn’t good at making friends.’ She was bullied and looking back she feels these factors combined to make her vulnerable to abuse.
Danni did tell her parents she was being bullied, but when they approached the school about this, staff told them she was misbehaving. She was sent to counselling for a few months, and this isolated her even more as the other girls knew about it.
The music teacher, Glynn, was popular with pupils and seen as being ‘cool’. He began grooming Danni towards the end of her first year at the school. ‘It began with him saying things like “You look like you need a hug”’ she says. ‘And I did.’
This escalated to sexual abuse which continued over the following two years.
Danni says the attention from Glynn made her feel special, especially as she had no friends.
Glynn was sent on a placement to another school for a while, and when he was due to return, some of the other girls said they didn’t want him to come back. Danni felt the same way. She told a teacher, and the reason why.
The teacher said she suspected this might be the case as she had ‘heard things’. The school told Danni she had to tell her mum. She did so, and says she was ‘amazing’.
However, the school told her parents ‘You must not tell the police, we will handle it in-house’. They added that they would ensure Glynn moved to another school.
Danni says ‘For almost 30 years I have felt guilty about that. What if he did it to other kids?’
During the time that Glynn was abusing her, Danni was drinking alcohol at school and says some of the teachers were aware of this. She feels guilty and ashamed that she did not speak out sooner about the abuse. She finds it hard to trust people.
Danni feels strongly that private schools must be held to account. She says that too often they are more concerned with their reputation and income than with the welfare of their pupils.
She says that when she reported Glynn’s behaviour ‘it wasn’t in any way managed properly’. It emerged later that he had sexually abused other girls at the school.
Danni adds that school staff should be well-trained in safeguarding and welfare, and that teachers should not be allowed to be alone with children.
She has a successful and rewarding career and is in a supportive relationship.
‘I don’t want him to define who I am, but in some ways he has’ she says. She still worries that Glynn abused other people and says that sharing her experience is a way of speaking out again.