Three days before my 38th birthday I went to my old prep school’s carol service at St Mary’s, Chesterton. 

I wanted to be the last to arrive so I sat in my car, watching and waiting. And the second I saw the boys trooping off to church in their canary yellow jumpers, I was 13 again: the confused, abused, friendless, disturbed, (undiagnosed) autistic child who would have been expelled a dozen times over if the headmaster hadn’t been grooming me.

​I went to church on December 13th 2018 out of concern for the safety of the boys at Bruern Abbey School, and to confirm my suspicions that I had been lied to by the school’s senior management and safeguarding leads, including the current headmaster. 

​My rapist Sterling Stover was there, in the front pew next to John Floyd. The same small man, his cherub face a little more lined; still with a full head of hair (most of mine had already gone by then) but showing the encroaching frailty of seventy as he slowly walked up the nave and took his seat. But even after a quarter of a century, he was the same man. The same man who put his tongue in my mouth, and then his penis, and then put his penis in my bottom. 

​For a couple of years I had been in correspondence with John Floyd about my concerns. The possibility of a meeting to discuss my abuse and my rapist's continued involvement in the school had been dangled in front of me before being withdrawn, presumably on the advice of lawyers. By email, Floyd had told me that Sterling Stover played no part in the life of the school, but here he was sitting alongside this rapist at the end of term carol service. He had lied. 

​I sat through the longest carol service of my life, sucking surreptitiously from a big bottle of Becks while the boys struggled to mimic the splendour of Carols from King’s. We sat through a seemingly endless litany of anthems, solos, readings and hymns. For one of the congregation, the whole thing was a 90-minute panic attack. I was struggling to hold it together, to keep myself from fleeing the church and running away from what I had come to do: confront him. And I desperately needed a wee.

​Eventually it was over. We filed out of the church and into the winter darkness which granted a gratifying cloak of anonymity. Though fairly newly bald and bearded, I was worried the current headmaster might recognise me from my LinkedIn or Twitter profiles. I kept well out of his eye-line.

​We went across the road to the school to enjoy mulled wine, mince pies, and the buzz of boarding-school boys reunited with their parents, ready to be whisked home for the holidays. I was drinking then, so I gulped a big glass of wine and plunged into the circles of small-talking parents. 

​Hello. I’m sorry to butt in. I’m an old Bruern boy and I’ve got something very important to say, and I’m afraid that it’s deeply unpleasant and shocking. I’m sorry to say that Sterling raped me when I was a boy here. I know this must be distressing, but here are my details if you would like to know more. And again, I’m very sorry to butt in with something so disturbing. Thank you for your time.

​I did this with three or four groups of parents, perhaps a dozen or so in total. There’s not much you can really say to that, is there? They listened to my little speech in silence, stood there shellshocked for a few seconds. The reaction, such as it was, was along the lines of Well, you’ve given us a great deal to think about.

​What to do next? In my heightened, hair-trigger anxiety I felt sure the current headmaster would identify me any second. So I approached Stover, who had been doing the rounds and had passed me several times without so much as a glance. I slapped him on the back and, oozing bonhomie, told him I was an old boy.

​He looked a little nervous. We have a lot of old boys, forgive me if I don’t remember you.

​Well, I’m surprised you don’t recognise me. Beat. You raped me.

​Everything after that was a blur. He broke off, found Floyd and they disappeared for a hurried conference. John Floyd soon returned and found me speaking to another parent. He tried to butt in, something like, Mr Jessel, you need to come with me now. Something like that: the man of authority who demands and expects instant obedience. But for the first time in that school, I had a little power. I told him not to be rude and that I would be with him in a minute.

​And that’s what I did. He took me to his study with another senior man from the school. I can’t remember a word that was said, but I do remember, as we talked, slowly stripping off my clothes: first I hung my coat on the back of the door; then I took off my jacket, folded it carefully and laid it on a chair. My jumper joined it. Standing there in a t-shirt, I proffered my arms to them. Look, I said. Look at the scars. This is a very small part of the damage he did, and the only bits you can see.

​As I left for the long walk to the station, I passed Sterling Stover standing just outside the school’s grand entrance. He looked lost; shrunk and hunched, he raised his eyes, and with a look that seemed to go through and far beyond me, he mumbled something about lies and wickedness. I thought of hitting him, of course I did. But I'd shamed myself by doing that once, twenty years before; now he was 70 and there were boys about. Plus, in the state he was in, I didn’t think he’d feel the blows. 

​There was no pleasure, no vengeance in it. I just had to show, one time, that I was not under his spell; that, even if it were only in the last hour of the last day of Michaelmas Term, I had power over him. For 25 years he had lived in my head. It was time I was in his.

​What follows is my email to John Floyd a few days later. It refers to previous correspondence between us in which he assured me my rapist was no longer involved in the school. Here’s what I wrote:

Letter to John Floyd, January 2019

In our conversations and email exchanges you gave me three explicit assurances. 

∙That Jerry Sterling Stover plays little to no part in the life of the school 

∙That Stover ”used to” have an apartment within the school building, but that this is no longer the  case 

∙ That you had listened to my evidence to the IICSA 

My visit, to my dismay and disappointment, provided evidence that, for whatever reason and at whoever’s urging, these assurances appear to be less than truthful. It is entirely a matter for you if you do or not believe that Sterling Stover abused me. It is, however, a matter of wider concern if the school is being less than robust in ensuring that all possible steps have been taken to identify and eliminate danger to children, especially when the possibility of such danger is specifically brought to its attention. I had given you plentiful opportunities personally to engage with me prior to my visit, but I was always brushed off. 

​

Sterling Stover plays little to no part in the life of the school 

​

I observed Stover's role at the carol service, and through subsequent discussions with parents at the reception. It would appear to any neutral observer that he continues to play a central part in the life of the school; he certainly seems on first-name terms with the dozen or so parents to whom I spoke. 

Stover “used to” have an apartment within the school building, but that this is no longer the case 

​In conversation with the Reverend Gareth Miller I mentioned in passing that John Floyd had assured me that Stover no longer had an apartment within the school. “That’s simply not true,” the vicar told me, “he absolutely does still have an apartment in the school.”  ​

John Floyd had listened to my evidence to the IICSA 

This I believe to be false. When I initially sent the same link to the Reverend Miller, he was unable to play the sound file – it was locked. I had to send it to him through WeTransfer before he could listen to it. John Floyd made no such request and also showed ignorance of a key part of my testimony when we met on 13th December. 

​It is only natural that I should question some of the other things I was told that day: for example, that because your pupils are SEN and, in the words of Charles Banbury, “have no filter” they could not keep an instance of abuse hidden, no matter how hard they tried. While not a specialist in SEN, I do have personal experience of keeping a shameful secret for many years before I had the courage to share it. May I refer you to an article in SEN magazine www.senmagazine.co.uk concerning the Children’s Commissioner’s report on child sex abuse which addresses this matter in the following terms: ‘The majority of victims go unidentified because the services that protect them … are geared towards children self-referring or reporting abuse. Often, children do not even recognise that they have been abused until they are much older.’ “Our research suggests that many victims suffer in silence, unknown to those who could protect  them to help them to overcome their experiences,” says the Commissioner. “This is often because the services we provide rely on children coming forward and telling someone that they have been abused,  which they rarely do.” 

Finally, and although this has no bearing (I hope) upon these matters, I’d like to take this opportunity to let John Floyd know that being married and having children is not as convincing a claim of sexual continence  and propriety as he seems to think it is. 

Although Stover mentions money whenever we have met, I cannot adequately describe how repulsive I find the tactic. I have no desire for Stover’s money, and, strange as it may seem, I have no desire for any retribution to be visited upon him. I also wish the school no harm; in many respects I value my time there.  

​My sole concern is to be truthfully assured that Stover is removed from the company of young and vulnerable boys. I would, for instance, be reassured to know what measures you are taking in the light of the Commissioner’s recommendation that ‘all teachers in all schools should be trained and supported to understand the signs and the symptoms of child sexual abuse’. 

​My offer to meet and discuss this is still on the table. You are free to resist or ignore it. In that case, you must decide if, in spite of not addressing this uncomfortable issue, you are satisfied, in all conscience, that you have done all you can to safeguard the children you are charged to protect. 

​Robert Jessel

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