Svengali in crocodile shoes cast spell over girl pupils so he could abuse them
Amid the pre-dawn gloom of a Californian morning, a team of US marshals gathered in front of a three-storey townhouse. They had been well briefed on their task and, on paper at least, it must have sounded simple enough: to arrest a 58-year-old Englishman by the name of Chris Ling.
The allegations facing him were historical, a string of sexual assaults dating back to the 1980s when he taught the violin at the noted Chetham’s School of music in manchester.
Ling had long denied any wrongdoing and had refused to return voluntarily to the UK to face his accusers. instead, for the past 25 years he had embraced the American way of life, moving to the upmarket Santa monica suburb of Sherman Oaks where his classical music talent agency did well enough to buy him a £1million-plus property complete with roof-top Jacuzzi.
But on Tuesday, at the request of the British authorities, the marshals knocked on the door of that house, aiming to take him into custody ahead of extradition proceedings.
Before they could enter, a gunshot rang out within the property. When they got inside, Ling, whose wife and teenage daughter were not there, was dead.
Justice had been a long time coming, but Ling had clearly decided he would never see the inside of a courtroom – or look his alleged victims in the eye. The man who once swaggered through the school corridors in cowboy boots, white leather jacket and medallion, casting his sick spell over the girls placed in his trust, had apparently taken his own life.
While his death will save several people the trauma of having to give evidence against him
‘Asked them to perform naked’
– 11 former pupils had come forward to tell police in manchester that he had abused them – it will bring them little closure.
Because the events in America represent only the latest chapter in an abuse scandal that has already claimed the life of a former pupil and that continues to blight the lives of scores of others.
While two former teachers have now been jailed for abusing female pupils at the school, the allegations against Ling were undoubtedly the most numerous. Had he been extradited it is understood he would have faced 77 charges of sexual offences against girls as young as 9.
These included allegations that he forced his pupils to play the violin naked, spanked them when they made mistakes, forced them to perform sex acts, and abused them himself. The disturbing question – and one that will not be aired in a criminal court of law – is why the authorities did not act against him sooner.
Pupils claim they complained to the headmaster at the time and a former police investigation into Ling was conducted in 1990. But no charges were brought against him, and he had by then moved to America, along with his young wife, a pupil he met while she was a teenager at Chetham’s. Only in the wake of another of the school’s teachers being jailed in 2013 would police investigate him again and, finally, try to extradite him.
‘What is shocking is that everyone knew about it but no one did anything about it,’ said one former pupil. ‘At the time he was so open about it that people referred to the girls he taught as Ling’s Flings. Looking back, it is hard to believe how it could have been allowed to happen.’
To understand the background to the abuse, something needs to be known of the nature of Chetham’s.
Established in its present form in 1969, it is the largest specialist music school in the country, with 300 pupils. it is co-educational and takes children aged between seven and 18. The majority are there as boarders, the fees heavily subsidised by the department for Education under a scheme to enable talented musicians to receive fulltime training at a specialist school irrespective of financial means.
Entry to the school has always been based solely on musical potential. in other words, it was an institution full of highly talented but also highly vulnerable young children, many of whom felt that their musical careers lay in the hands of their tutors.
into this fevered atmosphere sauntered Chris Ling. A teacher at the school between 1980 and 1989, he was a Svengali-like figure. His students, away from home for the first time, found themselves competing to become one of his protégées. ‘Ling made a huge impression on us when he arrived – he seemed to come out of nowhere, no one knew much about him,’ said one of his former pupils.
‘At a time when music teachers were wearing brown slacks and sandals, here he was with his chain round his neck, the swept-back hair, the bushy moustache. He wore these pointy crocodile shoes – it was like he’d walked off the set of the soap opera dallas.’
Another described how he quickly homed in on a number of the female pupils who showed him ‘cult-like’ devotion. ‘They would start dressing differently, in tighter clothes, wearing make-up and would practise for up to ten hours a day,’ she said.
Those he took a shine to would be invited to attend music courses at his house in Reading during the holidays or to join him in the pub for underage drinks.
Having been sucked into his orbit, it is claimed that he would then set about sexual abuse. We know of his modus operandi because a number of his former pupils bravely spoke out following
the conviction of Michael Brewer, the former director of music at Chetham’s, and a contemporary of Ling. He was jailed for six years for indecently assaulting a pupil.
His victim, Frances Andrade, killed herself after giving evidence against him at his trial, having been accused of lying during cross-examination. Her relatives said she had hoped by coming forward others who had also suffered would do the same. And that is exactly what happened.
One of Ling’s alleged victims claimed that as a 15- year- old boarder she was persuaded to let him massage her, during which he groped her breasts. He then made her perform a sex act on him.
‘I remember a feeling of being totally under his control, musically, emotionally,’ she said. ‘He could be so amazingly nice, and also so crushing, and I didn’t have the maturity to resist his way of controlling us.’
Others told the Guardian newspaper that Ling began grooming them for sexual activity by asking them to perform naked. Another pupil told how Ling sexually assaulted her in the late 1980s, when she was just 13. While at a music course at his house in Reading she claimed Ling came up with the idea of rewarding her for playing well, and punishing her if she played badly.
She explained: ‘ He asked me something like “How would they punish bad girls in the olden days?” and I think I might have even volunteered that they would have got a smacked bottom. I remember then getting a bit wrong in my piece and him putting me over his lap, pulling up my dress and pulling down my pants and spanking me. It happened more than once.’
Despite many saying they did not want to report Ling for fear of upsetting their parents, complaints were made. One pupil who heard what was happening confided in his housemaster, only to be told he was spreading rumours.
Another alleged victim claimed she told John Vallins, headmaster between 1974 and 1992, about what had happened to her. Mr Vallins says he has no recollection of this and that the first he knew of any problems was when police started to investigate Ling in late 1990.
‘I am extremely unhappy at the suggestion that I said I would look into something but nothing was done,’ he has said. ‘I am profoundly distressed at the suggestion that if I had good reason to suggest any improper behaviour towards any pupil, I would not have acted on it.’
The police intervention was prompted by a girl who claimed to have been abused from the age of 12. Ten of Ling’s students were subsequently interviewed by police. In March 1991, the story was reported in a tabloid under the headline ‘Music girl’s maestro in sex probe’.
Ling vehemently protested his innocence, his lawyer going so far as to tell the paper floridly that ‘more credence could be attached to rumours that Saddam Hussein has won the Nobel Peace Prize’.
By then, Ling had not only left the school but the country as well. In the summer of 1989 he had mar- ried 21-year-old Pip Clarke, one of his former pupils. The following year they moved to America.
Some of Ling’s alleged victims have claimed that they were told the case against him was dropped because police could not extradite him. It has also been claimed he missed his mother’s funeral because he was scared he would be arrested if he set foot on UK soil.
Whatever the truth, Ling attempted to put his past behind him. Initially he continued to teach, even enticing former pupils to travel to the US to continue their education with him.
But after spells at universities in Miami and Texas, he moved with his wife to Los Angeles to run a classical music talent agency, CHL Artists. There he managed not only his wife but a slew of musicians, actors and conductors – most of them attractive young women. In an interview in 1999 he brazenly stated his belief that young female classical musicians had to flaunt their sexuality.
When the interviewer noted how Pip Clarke appeared to be topless in her publicity pictures, ‘clasping her violin against her chest ... her lips parted invitingly’, Mr Ling said the effect was intentional.
He always had sensual pictures taken of his female clients. ‘Classical music has to find a new audience,’ he said. Although Ling liked to give the impression that he was a big noise in the music world – he drove a Jaguar, his wife a Mercedes 350 – others were less sure.
Jack Price, who runs Price Rubin, a veteran LA classical music management agency, has known the couple for 20 years and said Chris Ling had a reputation for being greedy and unscrupulous.
‘Chris is just a suit who wants to make money from classical music,’ Mr Price said. ‘He still seems to have had a sort of Svengali-effect on some people.’
Had justice been allowed to follow its course, the true nature of the grip he exerted upon those young, impressionable girls all those years ago would have been subjected to the strictest of examinations. Now, it never will. But perhaps Ling’s fatal reaction when the police finally came knocking tells us all we need to know about his guilt.
‘Greedy and unscrupulous’