C4 Cathy: I was sexually harassed by boys at top private school
CHANNEL 4 newsreader Cathy Newman has revealed she was sexually harassed as a pupil at a prestigious public school.
Miss Newman attended Charterhouse’s sixth form on a scholarship.
In one incident, she said a boy who was sitting beside her at lunch ‘unzipped his flies and grabbed my hand and forced me to touch his penis’ when she was 16.
She also revealed that boys would spray girls with water if they were wearing white shirts so they became see-through. She added that some of the boys would grade the few female pupils on their looks.
Miss Newman, 44, spoke out about her experiences at the elite private school in Surrey – which charges £39,000 a year for boarders – ahead of the launch of a campaign by anti-bullying charity the Diana Award.
She told The Sunday Times: ‘We were in the lunch hall and a boy sitting next to me unzipped his flies and grabbed my hand and forced me to touch his penis. I didn’t talk to anyone about it [for years].
‘Now we’ve got online abuse and the [concern] about someone taking a naked photo. I think back to that incident. How much worse would it have been if it had been being filmed and put out [online]?’
Miss Newman, whose father was a teacher at the school, said the harassment left her feeling humiliated.
She said she did not talk about her experiences until opening up to her parents last year, but is speaking out now to encourage others to report bullying and harassment. She said: ‘Your instinct is always, or has been I think, to sort of laugh it off and then question whether you were in some way to blame. I think that’s exactly what I did.
‘I was just having a nice chat with people over a meal [when the incident took place], so it was completely unexpected.
‘I just shrieked in a fairly comical way, laughed at myself to get over the humiliation of it, but afterwards I felt really embarrassed and quite... you know, you’re a 16-year-old girl, you’re not that sure of yourself, you’re just trying to work out who you are, what you want out of life and something like that makes you feel humiliated.’
Miss Newman added: ‘Some of the things that went on at that school, I would now describe as sexual harassment. I don’t know why I didn’t report them at the time. If you wore a white Tshirt, the boys would get the fire hose out and spray you down so that they could see your underwear.
‘There were various more serious things that I really wish I had reported and I don’t know why I didn’t.
‘I think at the time, when you are at school, you just try to laugh it off.’ Charterhouse said it had not previously been aware of Miss Newman’s allegations, but that it had now reported them to the police.
The school added: ‘If disclosures such as these regarding a current pupil were made to us today we would report them immediately to the statutory authorities and act to safeguard any pupils
‘Makes you feel humiliated’
affected whilst statutory enquiries took place.
‘ Having now been made aware of these particular allegations, we have reported them to the police and will assist them fully in any investigation. While the events are said to have happened some time ago, they are deeply shocking. Such behaviour has no place in any school.’