A raw look at failure of abuse victims in boarding schools
An estimated one million people in Britain today went to boarding school. Increasingly, the extent of sexual abuse in these institutions is coming to light. Boarding Schools: The Secret Shame – Exposure (ITV) followed journalist Alex Renton, who was himself abused as an eight-year-old by his teacher, as he investigated how much schools knew about what was going on behind their closed doors.
Since going public four years ago about his own experience, Renton has built a unique database, created from the plentiful personal correspondence he has received from other victims. Here they spoke openly about the abuse they suffered, many for the first time, and how it contaminated their lives – “like having a toxin inside you”, as one powerfully put it.
The pattern was disturbing, with paedophiles grooming and habitually assaulting boarding students. If pupils reported abuse, it was hushed up to avoid scandal and protect the school’s precious reputation, meaning prolific abusers got away with it for decades. If they were “moved on”, according to the programme, they left with glowing references and continued teaching elsewhere, preying on more children.
Renton met families devastated by the impact of abuse. One such family was that of Gavin Purchas, who was abused by his maths teacher and committed suicide a couple of years ago, aged 37. It was clear from the interviews that it was still raw for his mother and sister, who were very emotional. But the most shocking interview of them all was that of “James”, a former prep-school teacher and convicted paedophile. As Renton asked questions of him that the journalist wished he could put to his own abuser, who is now dead, “James” was unrepentant, even gloating.
It was impossible not to feel outrage and anger on the victims’ behalf. Most of these grotesque acts and systematic failures were “historic” but there was no room for complacency, as Renton wondered if boarders are safe today. The answer wasn’t entirely reassuring. Safeguarding standards vary wildly between schools and reporting of abuse allegations is still not legally mandatory. But the documentary was a thoroughly researched and righteously angry film about a deeply worrying issue.
‘Walls have ears,” goes the saying, and crime drama Marcella (ITV), which returned last night for the second series, applied it quite literally.
The episode began with a workman drilling into plaster, only to recoil in horror when he chanced across a lug-hole. When the brickwork was removed, DS Marcella Backland (Anna Friel) discovered a corpse, which was identified as a schoolboy who had been abducted four years ago.
This led us to be introduced to a rogue’s gallery of characters who will inevitably become embroiled in the labyrinthine case, including convicted child abuser Phil Dawkins (Peter Sullivan), washed-up rock drummer Reg Reynolds (Nigel Planer) and Eric (Josh Herdman), an Afghan war veteran with anger issues.
Written by Hans Rosenfeldt, creator of The Bridge, this opener was a box-ticking exercise in Nordic noir tropes. Moody detective with a signature coat and personal problems? Present. Tendency to wander unaccompanied into dark buildings? Naturally. Cameras inching down creepy corridors, while the soundtrack of throbbing electronica built to an ominous crescendo? Why, of course. This stuff has become so clichéd in 21st-century whodunits, it has lost its power to thrill. Which must be why webcams, food banks and zero-hours contracts were all thrown into the mix in an attempt for it to seem timely.
This drama offered a depressingly bleak view of the world where everyone was either a serial killer, a predatory paedophile, a philandering swindler, a violent thug or just gruntingly dysfunctional. Even a child’s drawing and a pet mouse were imbued with sinister foreboding.
Meanwhile, Marcella herself was a tough heroine to root for. She was sour-faced and surly with everyone – not just criminals but colleagues, witnesses, even her boyfriend, who had the gall to cook her dinner and ask how her day had been.
Her sporadic fugue states and suicidal tendencies felt tacked-on to give her a personality quirk, rather than a key part of the plot. At least in the debut series, these violent blackouts made Marcella a suspect in the murder she was investigating. Here, they merely added gratuitous angst and, frankly, we had quite enough of that already. Friel is a fine actress who deserves better than this crime-by-numbers nonsense.
Boarding Schools: The Secret Shame – Exposure ★★★★
Marcella ★★