Private school suspends pupils for ‘ritual beating of boys with cricket bat’
‘Damaging and violent experiences’
AN elite private school has suspended two pupils over claims they beat nine younger boys with a cricket bat and belt in a twisted initiation ceremony.
Year 10 pupils, aged 14, are said to have been hit on their backsides by sixth-form bullies in dormitories at £39,000-a-year Millfield School.
They were ordered to bend over before being given a ‘choice’ of two lashes over their clothes or one on bare skin, according to a secret audio recording of the abuse. One of the nine victims said he could not sleep because of the pain while another woke up to bloodied sheets.
The Somerset school, which has 1,240 pupils, took action after a boy called Tok made two recordings on Saturday September 8 and sent them to his mother Erica Charles, 49, and father Ian, 52. His parents immediately removed him from the school and reported the 11- minute recordings to the headmaster Gavin Horgan.
Mrs Charles, a mother-of-three from Reading, Berkshire, told the Mail she called police on 101 to report the attacks – only to be told it was a matter for the school. Tok, 14, had earlier told his parents of cruel practices such as bed-flipping, where boys are suddenly sprung off mattresses.
There were also rumours of ‘fight nights’, where older boys force younger pupils to attack each other. Mrs Charles, managing director of a renewable energy firm, compared the bullying to the Victorian novel Tom Brown’s School Days, which told how a bully called Flashman mercilessly ‘roasted’ pupils on an open fire at Rugby private school.
She said: ‘The Upper Sixth boys went to each Year 10 bedroom gathering them up with a whole crowd following. They were saying something to the effect of “Trousers down!”, then giving them a choice of being hit once on the bare backside or twice with clothes on.
‘[On the recordings] you heard a lot of the older boys jeering as it was all going on, with a few victims asking things like “Why are you doing this?”. You could hear the whacking and the odd thing like “Put a towel in his mouth”. It was grotesque. Out of 12 Year 10 pupils, we believe nine were whipped, with three new boys left out – Tok was one of them.
‘After I heard the recording, I called 101 and spoke to a female call handler. We were told we needed full names of the abusers. My son didn’t know their names because it was the start of a new term.
‘She then told me that the police wouldn’t get involved because the school was dealing with it. I asked “Isn’t this physical assault bordering on a serious criminal offence?”. But she was very curt and simply said the school is dealing with it.
‘I was shocked and appalled that these older boys could do what they wanted without any recourse to the law.’
Mrs Charles told The Sunday Times: ‘If this was a teenager who beat another with a bat on the streets of London, he would be heading for borstal.
‘These are not rituals wealthy boys have to go through in boarding schools to become men. These are damaging and violent experiences.’
The family are calling for laws which would force fee-paying schools to report physical bullying to an independent agency.
Earlier this month, Channel 4 newsreader Cathy Newman told how she was sexually harassed as a pupil at £ 39,000- a- year Charterhouse School in Surrey.
Millfield head Mr Horgan said: ‘Bullying of any sort is wrong, and there is absolutely no place for it anywhere in our school. As soon as I was made aware of this allegation an investigation was conducted and the two pupils concerned were suspended.’
Last night police declined to comment on the incident.