Charles Spencer says schoolmaster he accuses of abusing him as a boy lives near his home
Younger brother of late Princess Diana speaks at Hay Festival about memoir A Very Private School
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Your support makes all the difference.Charles Spencer has said a schoolmaster who allegedly abused and was violent towards him lives near his estate in Northamptonshire.
Earl Spencer also told the audience at the Hay Festival on Sunday that he knows where a female member of staff at his former boarding school, who he claimed sexually assaulted him, lives.
The 60-year-old, who is the younger brother of the late Princess Diana, was speaking about his recently released memoir A Very Private School, in which he opened up about the alleged physical and sexual abuse he endured at Maidwell Hall school in Northamptonshire in the 1970s.
MailOnline reported Earl Spencer, who has been married three times and has seven children, said: “You have to keep an eye on children. I've got children of all ages but they all got very bored by their father cross-questioning them in the car on whether any teachers made them feel uncomfortable.”
Reflecting on his experience at the elite independent school, which caters to children aged 4-13, he continued: “There are two [staff members] that are still alive … I had to give them false names [in the book] because the lawyers were worried about it.
“I wasn't – there's nothing in that book that I cannot corroborate with various witnesses.
“One of them was a very abusive master who hated me and was very violent with me.”
The earl alleged the schoolmaster lives close to his and the late Princess of Wales’ childhood home Althorp House, a 13,000-acre estate he inherited in 1992 and now lives in with his wife Countess Karen Spencer, and their 11-year-old daughter Charlotte Diana. He added: “I don't want to see him.”
Speaking of the female member of staff, he said: “I’m sure justice may well catch up with her quite soon.”
The historian’s memoir details how a predatory assistant matron, whom he called a “voracious paedophile”, allegedly groomed him when he was just 11 years old as well as other young boys and abused them in their beds.
He described the experience as “incredibly traumatising” and said it led him to hire a prostitute while on holiday in Spain at the age of 12 to “finish the grooming”.
He also claimed the “terrifying and sadistic” headteacher of the prep school John Porch, who is now dead, brutally beat the children, appearing to gain sexual pleasure from the violence he inflicted.
Earl Spencer, godson to the late Queen, said: “I didn't want it to sound like an upper-class whinge and the message of my book isn't, ‘Poor me, I went to a very expensive school that wasn't very nice.’ It's that children are very vulnerable.”
During his research for the book, the former television journalist found that the effects on the emotional development of the brain of children are the same for those at boarding schools as they are for children in care.
Earl Spencer, who joined the school when he was eight, said he was inflicted with beatings to the point of drawing blood and shared that he witnessed punishments, including “cutting buttocks [of young children] several times with a cane and carrying on”.
Other former students he interviewed revealed that they had been raped multiple times at the school, while some had lost their siblings to “self-neglect”. One terminally ill man stipulated a refusal to see his parents in his living will, as he could not forgive them for his experience.
Maidwell Hall School previously told The Independent in a statement: “It is sobering to read about the experiences Charles Spencer, and some of his fellow alumni, had at the school, and we are sorry that was their experience.
“It is difficult to read about practices which were, sadly, sometimes believed to be normal and acceptable at that time. Within education today, almost every facet of school life has evolved significantly since the 1970s. At the heart of the changes is the safeguarding of children, and promotion of their welfare.
“We have been dismayed to read about the allegations of the abuse Charles Spencer suffered by an assistant matron in the 1970s.
“Although we have not directly received any claims from ex-pupils, considering what has been reported, the school has followed the statutory process and made a referral to the LADO (Local Authority Designated Officer). We would encourage anyone with similar experiences to come forward and contact either Maidwell Hall, the LADO or the police.”
The Independent has approached Maidwell Hall School for comment.