Police investigate racism claims at independent boys’ school

ALLEGATIONS of racism at a leading boys’ school are being investigated by police after a former pupil detailed the abuse he faced from his peers.

An alumnus of Loughborough Grammar School (Lgs),which charges £33,990 a year for boarders, said his time at the school was a “living nightmare” because of racially motivated bullying.

The student detailed how he was called the N-word, as well as other derogatory terms such as coon, kaffir, golliwog, slave, pickaninny and monkey.

In an open letter that was published on Twitter earlier this month, he said he was also hit with a cricket bat as well as “constantly slapped and punched”.

“I was treated as less than a pupil, less than a boy, less than a human,” he said. “I wasn’t even allowed to be good at something without it being doubted.”

A second open letter from several black alumni of LGS and other schools run by Loughborough Schools Foundation claimed that the school presided over “several decades of increasingly ubiquitous racism and racist tropes”.

Ex-pupils also compiled a dossier of more than 100 allegations of racism from current and former pupils at the schools in the group. In one incident, a former LGS black student said that a chain was placed around his neck “like a leash” while he was called a “slave” by a fellow pupil which left him feeling humiliated. He described how when he raised his voice in response to the jeering, he was sent out of the classroom.

The foundation said in a statement that it offered an “unreserved apology” to anyone who suffered racism at its schools. “It is deeply upsetting to us all that this could have happened,” it said.

“The accusations are very serious, and we have reported them to the police and asked that an investigation is undertaken.

“There are no excuses. Racism has no place in this foundation. We are sorry that we have fallen short of our aims and strive for better.”

The foundation’s statement added: “These accounts are disturbingly recent and bring home to us that so much more work is required with our students to create a genuinely equitable school community.”

LGS, which educates boys aged 10 to 18, was founded in 1495, making it one of the country’s oldest independent schools.

A spokesman for Leicestershire Police said it was investigating the allegations. “The report was made on June 9 and concerns several incidents over a number of years,” they said.

‘I was treated as less than a human. I wasn’t allowed to be good at something without it being doubted’