In Dark Corners Radio 4
The Followers Global Podcast
Journalist Alex Renton’s three-part series on child abuse in private schools is no easy listen. I came upon it by chance, but could not turn it off.
Renton was eight when he left home to board at a private school, Ashdown House, a feeder school to Eton College.
Within weeks, he was sexually abused by a teacher who was never charged or sacked and died in 2011, a free man.
Renton tried to forget what happened like so many others. But he could not.
Then in 2014, he wrote a book, Stiff Upper Lip, about public schools and his and others experiences. That’s when the emails and messages came flooding in.
These were the poshest schools: Eton; Fettes; Gordonstoun – schools for the elite, the future kings and prime ministers.
Fenton talks to those who were sexually and physically abused.
One man said he had wiped all the memories but suddenly they came flooding back.
There were stories of boys being punched or knocked unconscious or being called to the front desk and being fondled under the cover of an exercise book.
What was most harrowing was how many of the perpetrators got away with it in plain sight.
Time and again, complaints were made and nothing happened or the abuser was moved on to another school.
Why should that appear odd to us in Ireland where appalling clerical abuse and cover-ups took place?
A British crime survey suggests that more than five million people get stalked in the UK each year.
LBC presenter Shelagh Fogarty never dreamed she’d be one of them.
She’s a strong woman who confronted her stalker but it did not end there.
Her podcast - The Followers – charts her experience and talks to experts about what to do.
It started one day when she emerged from the studio in London and noticed a man sitting outside.
She kept seeing the same face in the crowd or on the train, it became clear that this was no mere coincidence.
She started to feel anxiety bubbling up inside her, thinking that this man had decided to spend his summer following her.
It was the “drip, drip, drip effect of stalking” that pushed her to the edge of coping.
After nearly three years, you don’t walk away from it the same as you were before, she said.