‘Piano teacher put pupils through bogus exams and kept fees’
APIANO teacher put her pupils through fake exams while taking fees from their parents, a court heard yesterday.
Nadine May, 39, told children they had passed the prestigious Royal Schools of Music exams after years of practice.
But parents became suspicious and police were brought in when their child’s certificates failed to arrive.
Prosecutor Hannah George said: “Children sat the exams thinking they were genuine.
“But Miss May staged the exams herself and told the pupils they had passed.
“They kept on asking her for the certificates but she batted off their requests.
“Their parents contacted the Royal Schools of Music and were informed their child had not taken the exams.”
Mother of five Jayne Crudge told the court that her son, Tom, was “distraught” after discovering his merit pass in the Grade 5 exam was not valid.
She told the jury that May taped him playing set pieces and scales to send the recording to the examining body, the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music.
Mrs Crudge said: “She informed us three or four weeks later that Tom had passed and we were over the moon.
“We asked Nadine for the certificate but we never saw it.”
Mrs Crudge and her husband, David, were alerted to an investigation by the BBC Wales programme X-Ray.
She told Swansea Crown Court: “It put some doubt in our mind but we thought X-Ray had got it wrong and all we would have to do is ring the ABRSM to get the certificate.
“When I rang, a lady told me she could not speak to me about Nadine May but she said Tom did not have his Grade 5.
“I could not believe it. We stopped Nadine’s lessons, Tom was very distraught and did not want to see her.”
The court heard the Crudge family paid May £22 a week for lessons and £44 for the Grade 5 exam which Tom took in 2014.
May, of Grovesend, Swansea, denies three charges of fraud relating to two pupils. She claims the pupils were sitting mock examinations.
But Tom Crudge, now a 19-yearold university student, told the court: “I am 100 per cent confident it was not a mock exam.
“Nadine said she had been given special dispensation for me to take the exam at home.
“It would be recorded and sent off to the board.
“I was told I had received a merit in a text message from Nadine to my father.
“I had no reason to believe otherwise and a certificate would be issued in due course.”
Mr Crudge said he had been taught piano by May since he was nine years of age.
He told the court: “She taught me and my siblings, we had built up a relationship with her.”
The trial continues.