Gareth

Yeah, she went nuts. Obviously my mum went nuts. She knew something had changed as well. Your behaviour changed? Well, obviously. I told my mum everything. My mum was my sounding board, everything. I was close to my mum. She replaced my mum as what you call an appropriate adult, or whatever you want to say.

Yeah, obviously.

On a Thursday, I can tell you this for a fact, on a Thursday we had games all afternoon. Thursday games, I used to go for her house all afternoon and Thursday was like a day I had lots of sex.

She tried to buy me alcohol, but they weren't going for the school trousers and white shirt business they clocked I was a kid. I mean, you've seen pictures of me. It's not hard to know I was a kid, whatever I was dressed in.

I don't know, I'm going to say something that embarrassed my mother. Maybe we were light on glasses in the house or something. I don't know why, why I took these glasses home, but I did take them out of them.

No, I didn't.

Yeah, one with lipstick on. So that sent her into fucking palpitations, obviously, because she probably thought we were having sex in the house. And so when you got home that night, you got into a... I got that, yeah, that night, yeah, I did get it.

And Tinch said to her, oh, it doesn't matter anymore. Imagine this, right? It doesn't matter anymore. She's leaving anyway and she'll never work again. That's what he said.

She'll never teach again, yeah. That's what he said. So it's all right that he's been having sex with your son because we got rid of her and she's never going to work again. But the law of the land was that you couldn't have sex with 14-year-olds in 1988, yeah?

Well, if that's not confirmation, if she rings up and says, I definitely know they were seen in Edgware together, and he says to her, it doesn't matter anymore. What doesn't matter anymore? The issue she's raising with you, right? Which is that she's having sex with my 15-year-old son at that point. So yes, I'd say that was confirmation.

If ever there was confirmation from the school, I would say that was confirmation.

And she was just like, they know, they know. And I was like, what do you mean they know? Like, how do they know? Like, what do they know? And she said, no, they know, they know. They called me in for a meeting.

And then like when we're walking, she's like looking behind her and like she said, I think someone followed us.

And I kind of said to her, like, don't be silly, like, you know, because I wasn't a stupid kid. I said to her, all they've got to do is pull up in that road right there, outside your house, watch me come out with all my hair ruffled and my shirt out, and I've been in there two hours, and bish bash bosh, guess who's a genius? It doesn't take a genius to work that out.

And when I said that to her, I could see on her face, oh, fuck, yeah, that's true. Well, it was true, and that's probably what they did.

The way she said that they were so definitive in knowing that that is how they knew.

Because it's fucking simple, isn't it?

Yeah, at that point there she was panicking, big time. But the thing is, nothing came of it. So it just all calmed down and we just carried on.

I don't know. I can't even remember. It would have been general things like my behaviour or my work or what I expected from life or what I wanted to do with life.

Yeah, probably, if I'm honest. You see, the thing is, again, I always come across it and I have to try and be really disciplined with myself in the sense of what I felt back then and what I feel now.

Yes. Yes.

No, isn't that interesting?

No, they didn't.

In that summer, it was me and her, right? Against the world. Like, we were powerful, right?

That's not a question for me to answer, is it? That's a question for them to answer.

What's the point in lying at his time of life?

Heads were close together, we were looking at each other and then I just started kissing. Well, she's got 900 kids there and she selects me. I thought I was something special. I was, I just didn't know what kind of special that meant.

I didn't know I was going to be abandoned. I certainly didn't know that I was going to make a whole load of adult enemies that had my life in their hands and decided to sort of like teach me a lesson, if you like. I didn't know any of that.

After that, it was just pure sex every day.

Yeah, I told her I loved her all the way through.

I don't remember, quite early on. She did tell me she loved me, yeah.

Yeah, for sure. For sure, always.

She tells him... It's not as bad now that you're 15. I mean, comments like that all the way through.

But if all you do is take your clothes off and get into bed, about an hour and 45 minutes seems a long time for a 14-year-old boy.

No, never. Not one. Got through that front door, closed the door. That was it. She wouldn't even walk me to the tube station.

This woman, she didn't sleep with me, so I would go around and tell everyone else. She slept with me on the understanding that I wouldn't tell everyone else. And that was a tacit agreement, I suppose.

The only instance I can remember was to do with Ben.

Well, I was walking, Bowen's walking my way, and we've been having sex for quite a while now, and we've had some acknowledgement, but she was always careful not to have acknowledgement with me.

Ben's walked past her and Ben's interacting with her. Whatever he's said, whatever he's doing, he's doing. He's like, look at me, look at me. Bullshit.

She's gone off into the main building and Ben's now walking up to me. I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to, you know, I'm not giving anything away. But, like, you know, it would have been from my viewpoint at that time, you're harassing my girlfriend. Yeah, twisted, whatever. And Ben just looked straight at me. He was laughing. And he said to me, you're fucking her.

I know you're fucking her. Yeah. Oh, my God. And I was just like, oh, shit. Fucking big mouth Ben.

But also, I think people might have been too polite to do that. I mean, who wants to... But it was known. Nobody came up to me and asked me point blank. Ever. Not teachers or pupils.

I think she told MacIsaac. I truly do. I think she told her and she knew for certain.

I've still got an image in my head now. I was in the corridor in the upper school, not far away from the headmaster's office. I'm standing outside, being turfed as usual, probably for flicking something at someone or whatever I was doing.

And she said, I know what's going on. And I was like, I know what's going on with you and Sally Ann. I think she actually said you and Miss Barryn.

They sat at the front because the teachers would sit at the front of the bus and the kids would sit at the back.

Me being me, I was never shy with teachers. I could always talk to adults. And he leans forward and says... Do you know when you get on the bus, everybody knows you two have got on the bus because, like, they can smell you.

And Bowen made a big thing out of this and started saying, oh, what do we smell of? How do we smell? What are you trying to say? And I sort of said, well, you know, you smell of perfume. And she said, I don't believe you. I don't believe that's what you meant. And then she engaged in this game where she said, I want you to tell me what you meant.

I think you meant something like that we came out of the sea, like there's a creature out of the sea. At one point it did dawn on me, you know, at 13, even then, it did dawn on me what she was trying to get me to refer to.

And when I eventually said fish, I think I said whale before or whatever, I was trying to be polite. And when I said it, she was, like, so delighted that her little joke had come to fruition.

And she just, like, mm, like, she cringed, like, mm, that's disgusting, like, I mean, what woman wouldn't?

Yep. I mean, I'm sure there were other inappropriate things she said to me, but they just haven't stuck out in my mind.

Yeah.

I mean, for me, the next instance is the cafe instance. But, I mean, there must have been hellos and nods and whatever else happened.

I mean, I stopped messing about and I got into all the top groups for the fourth year.

I've got a lot of images of her standing at that bus stop in my head, of me arriving at the bus stop and her standing there.

Yeah, obviously. Obviously they're built up to that.

Yeah. how would that have made you feel the 14 year old girl something like jesus christ no i mean what would you of course that made me feel extremely special well she's got 900 kids there and she selects me so yeah well that's what that did to me like i thought i was something special i was i just didn't know what kind of special that meant

Right, anyway, so that day we'd been up to Tesco, he's got our pasties, whatever.

I saw him do it. Five fucking magazines he's pulled off the top shelf.

When you reached to the top shelf, even the people on the till would look. Everyone would look because they'd see this hand going up from all over. And Ben's fucking done it five fucking times. He's taken down five porno magazines. It's like, fucking hell, Ben. You're not going to get out of shot with that, mate. That's not like stealing football stickers, mate.

So anyway, we've trundled down, you know, we're going back towards the school and we've trundled down and it's like, oh, are we going to the CAF?

Yeah. Yeah, I did. Well, the thing is, I'm having conversations with her on the bus. She's like my friend at this point.

And if I remember rightly, the way I remember it is, like, I grabbed one, I think Danny grabbed one, as in, like, listen, you're embarrassing us all now, you're being a prick.

I don't know what she said, I can't remember that. I mean, you've got to remember the next event coming was such a huge event, it's hard to remember small memories surrounding that huge memory for me.

She said, have you still got that magazine? I said, yeah. And she sort of said, give me the magazine. And I sort of like, at first I was like, I think I said no. I think I questioned why she wanted it. And she just sort of said, give me the magazine.

She then just came to a page and she pointed it and she said, that's what mine looks like. And I said to her, what do you mean? And she said, that's what my pussy looks like.

Were you on the truth?

I knew I was going to fuck her. And that's really bad for me to say that because it's like, oh, well, you had intent. Actually, do you know what? I shouldn't actually say that because that's really wrong. No, no, it's really wrong because I shouldn't say that. It misrepresents me badly. I didn't know what I was going to fuck up because I had no idea what fucking was.

I knew that. That's what I'm trying to say. It's like hindsight I'm saying that. Oh, I knew I was going to... No, I didn't. I had no concept of it. How could I know I was going to do something I had no concept of? That's the first thing I'd say about putting that in context. But you're quite right. There was something... There was something profoundly different about that.

Hold on, now we're looking at vaginas and we're talking about, like, which one's yours? I mean, I know you're not having this conversation with no-one else. So, I mean, yeah, huge. Huge. That was huge.

Yeah, I was fucking shocked. Of course I was shocked.

There was an Asian guy from Christ College that obviously lived in the vicinity. Otherwise, he wouldn't have walked down Hamilton Road like that.

And we sat on the sofa in the front room and had a cup of tea.

I spoke about, like, I don't know what we... Like, when I say nothing untoward, the whole fucking situation's untoward, right? You don't have to say something that's going to make this worse. But, yeah, so then I had my cup of tea and I left. And then the next day...

So I've gone up and used the toilet. She's come upstairs and I've said, which room's yours? And I said, I think that room's yours. I said, well, surely we can sit here and drink our tea. And she said, I'll go downstairs and get the tea. And she sat next to me on the bed like that.

Both facing the wall, sort of like on a single bed. Sort of like sitting there like it was a sofa. And then, like, yeah.

I don't know. We were close together. Our heads were close together. We were looking at each other and then, like, just started kissing.

is just a feeling that I'd never had before in my life. I didn't understand how it felt. I couldn't recognise that I had actually had sex. And then we had this big discussion on whether or not I was a virgin because though she had sex with me, I didn't ejaculate in her. And so it was all this big debate on whether or not I was really still a virgin or I wasn't a virgin anymore.

Yeah.

Cat that got the cream. High as a kite.

You think a 14-year-old boy's going to blow the whistle on that?

Yeah, it fucking hurt his world. What are you talking about? What the fuck? I'm lying here fucking... Just mental, mental. Absolutely, I didn't like it. I mean, you'd have to sit down and speak to a psychologist or a psychiatrist about what would come out of that, the thoughts and what that child would think and the boundaries broken. I can't even do it now.

100%. In that summer, it was me and her, right? Against the world. Like, we were powerful, right?

Good, how are you? I'm OK, I'm OK.

You know, it's also just to put it in perspective for them, even though they're 50-year-old men now as well. What they were part of was an open secret that went around that school.

Various life events brought Gareth to the point where, ten years ago, he decided to press charges against his teacher.

And it makes me really angry that people would even for one moment question my account. This is not a dream for me.

How about the truth? How about we do that first and then we work out where we're going to go from there? How about the truth?

Well, yeah, because, I mean, like, you can speak to any of the boys about this as well, and I'm sure they'll back me up. I mean, everybody knew when Bowen hit Christ College.

My mother was an English teacher. My father was an editor. So I guess... You would say that I came from a middle-class family. I was the youngest of four. I had two older sisters and a brother. My early years, yeah, they were very happy.

I think I was in second year, so I'd have been about 12, 13, I think.

I was 13 when the conversation on the bus happened.

Then they got on the bus, Bowen and MacIsaac, together as they most of the time were.

She would have been beautiful rank number one and MacIsaac would have been beautiful rank number two. I mean, it's a boys' school and we were kids, so that was probably the way they thought about it.

How about the truth? How about we do that first and then we work out where we're going to go from there? How about the truth?

I thought I was something special. I was, I just didn't know what kind of special that meant.

It was me and her, right? Against the world. Like, we were powerful, right?

But when you introduce the sex the way I was introduced to sex, that the sexual act isn't some kind of secret that's held in a little box, where your emotions must stop now because we can't express anything outside this room.

That's where self-harm comes from as well. I was putting out cigarettes in my hands from when I was 16. I was cutting myself. And it led up to like three suicide attempts before I was 23. But I still have the urges.

In my mind for many years, like, that wasn't really her fault. In fact, I probably took blame for it because, you know... I walked her home. I pursued her. If you like. I didn't have to walk her home. It must have been my fault. And I still do that today. I still do that. It's automatic.

Mein Sohn wurde 14 Jahre alt und ich konnte immer noch seine kleinen Knöpfe sehen. Er wollte mit mir nach Hause gehen und Xbox spielen. Das hat mich hart gefühlt. Ich erinnere mich, dass diese Frau nicht deine Freundin war. Sie war krank. Denn was für eine Frau ist interessiert in diesem Jungen hier?

Aber als ich herausgefunden habe, dass sie lehnt, habe ich sie auf einem Website für eine Schule gefunden. Jetzt, als ich das herausgefunden habe, oh nein, da habe ich mich verarscht.

Du musst dich erinnern, bis zu diesem Punkt fühlte ich mich immer noch schuld, dass jemand, der in der Universität trainiert wurde, als Lehrer, seinen Job für immer verloren hat. Das ist das, was ich gesagt habe, das ist das, was ich bis 2014 glaubte, bis dann.

I didn't know. To a certain degree, I think so.

I hoped she would.

I mean, Bowen, by the days that go by, I get angrier and angrier.

Yeah, of course I'm angry. Because if she gets her way, I'm turned into the most heinous kind of liar there is. Not just someone that lied over thieving from a shop. Someone that's tried to appropriate the victim of a child abuse victim. Because she won't accept what she did.

Yeah, there were blows. Each one was a blow.

Wie sagst du das? Wie sagst du, ich wusste? Ich wusste und ich habe nichts gemacht und du bist Lehrer? Nein, das kannst du nicht. Aber sie wussten es.

Yeah. Because she was her best friend. It's a pretty rare name.

Gareth beginnt zu denken, dass etwas koordiniert ist, ein konzertierter Versuch der Lehrer, sich und die Schule zu schützen.

I was so upset. I know you were. I sent it to my mum and my sister and said, fucking like, what do you think?

In the past Sally-Ann Bowen has denied that she ever had any kind of sexual contact with Gareth or any other boy.

She was just like, they know, they know. And I was like, what do you mean they know?

She told me she was going to a kibbutz in Israel.

She told me when the school found out.

Yeah.

I'd say that was confirmation, if ever there was confirmation from the school.

Ja, natürlich. Aber auch gleichzeitig enttäuscht, nicht in der Lage zu sein. Das ist nie passiert, oder? Was ist da zu enttäuschen? Das ist die Realität für mich. Ich musste das auf mich selbst schlagen. Das ist die Realität.

I got in fights because boys called her a slag in front of me.

I hadn't really realised how bad it was until I asked Gareth about it.

I think someone was discussing Bowen. He went, oh, Bowen was just a slug. It used to piss me off if someone said that in front of me about Bowen.

Yeah, I believe so. Not my proudest moment.

Yeah, I think I split his skull open.

Yeah. I think I actually stamped on his head, Chloe. If you really want to know the truth. It sounded like a fucking shotgun going off. Like I said, not my proudest moment.

Well, obviously it had an effect on me. I mean, we all know that. We all know that a young boy at 14 years old having sex with a 27-year-old teacher, that's going to have a certain effect on him.

You know, I went for the ones that would develop sexually. You know, I didn't go for nice girls after that. Because nice girls weren't where I was at. Like, even today, I have a huge problem with sex. Sex isn't an emotional thing to me. I don't engage my fucking emotions. Sex is a physical act to me. Then that's not right.

There's a sexuality to it as well. And I found that watching her with the TRA, that I found that she was, you know, because she was under pressure, she was pulling out all her tricks of manipulation. You know, I found them very reminiscent. of the interactions I had with her as a child. That's why, when I came to that point and I addressed her directly, it's because I recognized her.

I recognized the faces she was pulling and the way she was being, yeah?

You're not the only one. I remember those words, you're not the only one. And he got off the tube.

You know the truth. We do know the truth, Sally-Anne. And, you know, you had sex with me on multiple occasions. Now you can try and put a new account. You can dress it up how you want. And you can split hairs over dates. You can split hairs over when certain things happen and when they didn't happen. And I was, despite thinking that I was an adult, I was a very young and naive 14, 15-year-old.

Cleanse your soul, man. Don't take that shit with you. Because you take that shit with you, Sally-Anne, it's going to be on your soul. Just own it. Own it.

It was, yeah, there was a lot riding on it. There was a lot riding on it. So, yeah, it was massive relief. Like, overwhelming relief. I actually thought he was over. And I meant all right. Go on, you can have a laugh at me.

Well, no, but it wasn't finished anyway.

Right, there you go. Yeah, of course that would have been betrayal. What, after me? Was it before me? Was I like the little afterthought?

I keep coming back to that fight I had with one of the sixth formers at Finchley Carnival and he seemed so, so sure in himself.

When he said to me, oh, she was a slag, the way he said it to me, I felt that he knew. That's why I became very upset about it because he did it with such confidence, if you like.

I said from the start that I didn't know anything and I knew this process was going to be difficult for me because... It's not nice to sit here and think I was basically like her plaything and that I was really nothing. Because like you said, I mean, whether wrong or right, I thought that I was one selected out of 900. And I know it doesn't make much difference.

But you see, learning these things, I don't know, I guess I feel a lot more used then.

Yeah, but I don't know his name and I really don't know his name.

I like Chloe, how are you doing?

Well, whatever he says, I just wanted to express the fact that I'm in a very mixed-up place for the last two hours. To feel jealousy or to feel competitiveness with another 51-year-old man 36 years later is an extremely confusing feeling for me. And my memories are being rewritten at the age of 51 because I didn't know certain things at the time.

i'm slowly realizing that like um yeah i don't i don't think i actually ever loved me he's um he's a little bit he's still working me out yeah

Hello. Hi. How are you doing?

Yeah, always.

Well, all I can say to that, this is my response to it... Don't remember any of that in the cafe. At all being a regular thing. At all. And I mean at all.

The only thing that I would say I'm surprised and sort of disappointed in my own reaction is that I found it, like, very unsettling It's like finding your first girlfriend was kissing all the other boys behind your back. And I think there was resistance from me to listen to like, I don't really want to hear that. But I mean, I don't doubt what he says.

It's too similar to my experience for him to make it up. That's the truth. It's too fucking similar.

Yeah, very odd, but then the truth is odd, isn't it? That's the problem with, like, the truth. It always is odd. It's not like... It doesn't run in a straight line. That's right.

You know, you've got to remember, when I first gave my interview to... The police, I actually thought, I fucking thought she was going to come out and tell the truth. Imagine that. Imagine that. Crazy shit. Thinking back at all the different stages and like, I mean, I shouldn't be like that.

I read, there was an article today as well in the Daily Mail, It didn't set me off well for the day, I have to say. But it was an article about a 21-year-old being with a 16-year-old boy. I went, stupidly, I went through their 238 comments. And it was just the succession, really, of, like, your usual shit. When I was 16, this would have been a dream. I bet the boy thinks he has won the lottery.

Legal. Bet the lad is having a great time and learning. It just goes to show that the attitude of society towards this kind of thing is like... She can even help him with his GCSE resit. Lucky boy.

I was thinking about that the other day as well, how I would feel if, you know, I was still quiet, I'd heard nothing, and then I heard a documentary saying, actually at Christ College, I think that would have, a part of it breaking the spell, her spell, is not being special. I think if I was in that position and I heard this podcast... So I think I would come forward at that stage.

I actually offered the police, go to her and tell her, No criminal charges, but she has to talk to me. Off with it. And they said, oh, we wouldn't do that. Even if I wanted that, they will not agree to that. And I'd take that in a hat. I'd take that like that. It's like, why the fuck do I want to sit down and talk to her? What do I want to talk to her about? But you do. Oh, yeah. Desperately.

It might take me a couple of months, but I think I would come forward. So I think if there are others, I think they will come forward. I do believe that.

Desperately. When I think about it now, I want to punch a wall. I'm angry that I don't get to talk to her.

Do you know?

What's confusing is I might want to hug her. I might want to kiss her. I might want to fuck her. I might want to punch her in her face. I might just want to cry. How about that? How fucked up's that?

A 14-year-old having sex with a 27-year-old teacher, that's going to have a certain effect on him.

The first photo I saw of Bowen, it was her with this young boy, like her in the background looking over this young boy's shoulder who didn't look dissimilar to me, right? sort of with her smiling.

I didn't realise the TIA proceedings were going to be so court-like. I made a complaint because that was all that was on the table at the time. But I can remember when it fucking turned up and I was like, oh, fucking hell, this is big now. If this happens, this is big, this is serious. They're taking this seriously. People are reading oaths, people are...

Yeah, I can hear you. Good afternoon.

So I would have been about 20. Yeah, I'd have been about 20, I'd say. And what happened was, because I was on the tube, I was minding my own business on the tube, going from Golders Green to Hendon.

And he decided to come and sit next to me on the tube, opposite me.

I can tell you for certain she's not telling the truth.

So she's a liar. And she knows. And I know that she's a liar.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously we, like, acknowledged each other. But he's sitting opposite me.