The founder of ‘evil and twisted’ school is jailed

THE founder of an ‘evil and twisted’ boarding school has been jailed for violence and cruelty against boys.

Derrick Cooper, 77, was a teacher at the notorious Knowl View School in Rochdale, where the town’s MP, Cyril Smith, is believed to be among paedophiles who abused boys.

There is no suggestion Cooper was in any way involved in that offending, and he has not been prosecuted in connection with his time there.

But after he left Knowl View in the seventies, he founded a private school for boys, Underley Hall in Cumbria, where pupils were brutally treated - and he has now been jailed for twenty months for offences committed there.

Among pupils there was Joseph Ryan from Manchester. Mr Ryan, now 48, has campaigned for years for prosecutions to be brought against former staff at Underley Hall.

Cooper tried to gouge a pupil’s eyes out, and smashed his face so hard into a dinner table that blood spattered into his food.

The pensioner - a former England volleyball player went on trial at Carlisle Crown Court earlier this year, denying six actual bodily harm assault charges and two cruelty charges towards separate pupils at the school, which was for boys with troubled backgrounds, dating back to the 1970s and 1980s.

A jury convicted Cooper of assaulting one boy, Henry Gow, from Scunthorpe; and cruelty to another, Sean Hann, from Heysham. Cooper was acquitted of six other charges.

Mr Gow told jurors how the six foot-plus owner head-butted him and ‘gave me a few kicks.’ Cooper, he said, also tried to gouge him, saying: “I’ll take your eyes out.”

Mr Hann told the jury how Cooper turned violent in a dining hall, ‘slamming’ his head against a table and ‘smashing’ it with a dinner tray. Mr Hann said his blood ‘got into the meal and all over my face’ telling was forced to wear only a towel to sleep in sub-zero temperatures on other occasions.

In a victim impact statement read to today’s hearing, Mr Hann described Underley Hall as an ‘evil, twisted place.’ Cooper, of Hillberry Green, Douglas, Isle of Man, has said he is ‘devastated’ by the jury’s guilty verdicts. His barrister, Peter Wright QC, asked for Cooper, a man in ‘poor health,’ to be sentenced ‘on the basis of isolated falls from grace.’

But locking him up, Judge James Adkin, told Cooper: “Using violence towards these children was a huge breach of trust.”

Jurors were unable to reach verdicts in respect of two other assault allegations faced by Cooper. As a result, they were discharged by Judge Adkin, who recorded two not guilty verdicts.

Four other defendants in the case were cleared of allegations of actual bodily harm and cruelty.

Another, former head teacher at the school, Errol Mayer, who had been charged with 18 counts of actual bodily harm and eleven of cruelty was deemed not fit to stand trial when the case started. He died on February 20th while the trial was ongoing.

Former pupil Joseph Ryan, 48, from Crumpsall, who contacted Cumbria police in 2014 to demand a ●●Derrick Cooper (inset) founder of former school Underley Hall was jailed for 20 months after being convicted of one count cruelty and one of actual bodily harm agsinst former pupils. fresh investigation into the school after an earlier one was closed, had been due to give evidence against Mr Mayer.

Underley Hall was first investigated in 1997 and a former PE teacher there, John Wadlow, was charged with 12 sex offences against pupils at the school. Mr Wadlow, who denied the allegations, took his own life before the case started and police closed the case, even though there were allegations against other members of staff.

Commenting on the result of the court case, Mr Ryan said: “It is disappointing, I can’t deny that. Had the police done the job right the first time round in 1997 then we would not be in the position we are now. Mayer would have been alive and fit to stand trial.

“But I’ve proved a point. I have justice of a kind.”

A review of the 1997 case by police found there was no evidence of misconduct by officers involved but concluded that since then there have been improvements in invetigative techniques.

Detective Superintendent Doug Marshall, of Cumbria police, said following the jury’s verdicts: “The investigation into nonrecent abuse at Underley Hall has been a complex one. A dedicated team has worked extremely hard to investigate almost 100 reports that were made against some of those who worked at the school and we continue to investigate more reports.

“This has involved hours and hours of analysing documents, taking statements, conducting interviews and of course keeping victims up to date at all stages of the investigation.

“We have worked thoroughly and sensitively to ensure that suspects were charged and brought before the court, and to enable those who made reports to be heard. The verdict delivered in respect of Derrick Cooper shows it is never too late to report abuse and the police will continue to take all such reports seriously.”