A version of this (kind of) happened to me - except I did find something when I googled my old school music teacher. In my case it wasn't me who had the experience as a teenager - it was a classmate. Aged 17 at the time, she was groomed by our music teacher, and the pair were discovered together in his hotel room during a school trip to Europe. It had gone a lot further than a sleazy gaze and inappropriate comment.
He was fired from his job, of course, but this was the mid 1990s. The fact that the girl was over 16 was seen as a "mitigating" factor (here in the UK the legal age of consent is 16, EXCEPT in the case of teacher/pupil relations, in which case it is 18. So it was still illegal, but the fact she could legally have sex with someone who wasn't her teacher was seen as relevant.) And the headteacher wanted to avoid a scandal for the school, which had an excellent reputation to uphold in our local area. So the teacher was quietly let go, with minimum fuss, and no authorities were informed.
Imagine my shock and sadness when I googled his name, 30 years later, to discover that as he himself aged (he was in his mid-20s when he groomed and assaulted my classmate), his criminal behaviour escalated. From a "relationship" with a 17 year-old, 7 years his junior, who technically consented and whose consent would have been completely legal had he not been her teacher, his depravity and boldness grew - no doubt boosted by having got away with it so easily. By the time he was in his late 40s, he had been found guilty of r*ping a 7 year old. He was her music teacher.
The whole thing makes me feel sick and so so angry at the actions of the headteacher who let him go with a reference to keep it quiet for the sake of her school and reputation. Had she acted correctly and reported him to the police, he would have been struck off as a teacher and put on a list of people who could never ever teach again. By the time of the crime against the 7 year old, procedures for hiring teachers were extremely tight. His past crime would have been discovered and he would never have been allowed to teach that child, or any child ever again.
Thank you so much for so bravely sharing this! All hugs to you.
Good for you all the way for exercising wise judgment in the end. You wouldn’t have been expected to recognize that at that age but your teacher was actually trying to groom you when he asked you to mix that CD for him and by going out of his way to ask about your favorite bands the way he did. From what you indicate, he wasn’t doing that with anyone else. At least not while he was your teacher.
Your later online search would be quite a normal response to your situation. It would be natural to wonder if he did the same or worse to others. Not that that’s unfounded, either, as offending pedos, unfortunately, tend to have at least 50-100’s of victims before they’re arrested. (I learned that stat in my child abuse and maltreatment class in college) and often go out of their way to work in or volunteer at jobs where they’ll have easy access to kids.
But more than hoping to find a legal record, I think that was also, deep down on your part, an attempt to find closure and peace of mind. Though the good news is that the latter starts from connecting within.
What a wise young women you were. I wish I had been.
A version of this (kind of) happened to me - except I did find something when I googled my old school music teacher. In my case it wasn't me who had the experience as a teenager - it was a classmate. Aged 17 at the time, she was groomed by our music teacher, and the pair were discovered together in his hotel room during a school trip to Europe. It had gone a lot further than a sleazy gaze and inappropriate comment.
He was fired from his job, of course, but this was the mid 1990s. The fact that the girl was over 16 was seen as a "mitigating" factor (here in the UK the legal age of consent is 16, EXCEPT in the case of teacher/pupil relations, in which case it is 18. So it was still illegal, but the fact she could legally have sex with someone who wasn't her teacher was seen as relevant.) And the headteacher wanted to avoid a scandal for the school, which had an excellent reputation to uphold in our local area. So the teacher was quietly let go, with minimum fuss, and no authorities were informed.
Imagine my shock and sadness when I googled his name, 30 years later, to discover that as he himself aged (he was in his mid-20s when he groomed and assaulted my classmate), his criminal behaviour escalated. From a "relationship" with a 17 year-old, 7 years his junior, who technically consented and whose consent would have been completely legal had he not been her teacher, his depravity and boldness grew - no doubt boosted by having got away with it so easily. By the time he was in his late 40s, he had been found guilty of r*ping a 7 year old. He was her music teacher.
The whole thing makes me feel sick and so so angry at the actions of the headteacher who let him go with a reference to keep it quiet for the sake of her school and reputation. Had she acted correctly and reported him to the police, he would have been struck off as a teacher and put on a list of people who could never ever teach again. By the time of the crime against the 7 year old, procedures for hiring teachers were extremely tight. His past crime would have been discovered and he would never have been allowed to teach that child, or any child ever again.
Thank you so much for so bravely sharing this! All hugs to you.
Good for you all the way for exercising wise judgment in the end. You wouldn’t have been expected to recognize that at that age but your teacher was actually trying to groom you when he asked you to mix that CD for him and by going out of his way to ask about your favorite bands the way he did. From what you indicate, he wasn’t doing that with anyone else. At least not while he was your teacher.
Your later online search would be quite a normal response to your situation. It would be natural to wonder if he did the same or worse to others. Not that that’s unfounded, either, as offending pedos, unfortunately, tend to have at least 50-100’s of victims before they’re arrested. (I learned that stat in my child abuse and maltreatment class in college) and often go out of their way to work in or volunteer at jobs where they’ll have easy access to kids.
But more than hoping to find a legal record, I think that was also, deep down on your part, an attempt to find closure and peace of mind. Though the good news is that the latter starts from connecting within.
I love the way you tell this story - the tension is built and held so well!