Sevenoaks School teacher had 'six more victims' of sex abuse, claims accuser
Sevenoaks Chronicle, Monday, November 18, 2013
Sean-Paul Doran

AN ex-Sevenoaks School pupil who says he was sexually abused by a former teacher claims there are at least six more victims yet to come forward.

A legal claim involving high-profile former teacher, inventor, author and philosopher Gerd Sommerhoff, now dead, was last week settled out of court. The lawyer of the unidentified claimant described the settlement as a “not-so-insignificant amount”.

The distinguished German-born Sommerhoff, who was later awarded an OBE, was alleged to have sexually abused a then-12-year-old boy between 1976 and 1983.

However, another man who says he was abused by Sommerhoff in the 1970s has told the Chronicle that he knows of at least six more alleged victims, all ex-pupils, who have not spoken out.

Stuart Neilson, 49, attended the school from 1975 to 1982 and claims the technology teacher – who died in 2002 – abused him at the age of 12 in his private living quarters.

“I know of at least eight ex-pupils, including myself and the man who brought the legal case, but I’m sure there are more given he spent two decades at the school,” he said.

“I considered him a friend and I didn’t have many friends at that time so it made me feel special – but he took advantage of that.

“I think there was a culture that people thought it only happened to you if you deserved it – that you must have done something to attract it.

“He would watch me going to breakfast and coming back from his flat round the back of Lambardes House. It wouldn’t have been hard for him to pick out the loners and the ones without a smile on their face.

“He really understood me and he would lend me books and talk to me about them. He was a very charismatic man and he really understood the psyche of children.

“It seemed to be well-known that he was attracted to young boys – there were crude jokes about him. But I was afraid to tell the other teachers because I don’t think they would have listened.”

Father-of-two Mr Neilson, who now lives in Ireland, first spoke to the Chronicle about his experiences last year and said the publicity surrounding the Jimmy Savile case encouraged him to speak out.

He says he will not be pursuing a legal claim but wants the school to take responsibility for what happened.

“I think it would have been better to hear the (settled) case in a court of law but that is hard on the victim. It would be very hard to stand there and go through it all again,” he added.

“In my case, I thought if I can make a police report and tell them what happened to me, then it was out there in public and I’m putting the problem back in the laps of the people who made it – the school.

“My motivation for coming forward isn’t about money – I don’t want that and I don’t need it – but I want the school to acknowledge that this was happening.

“If it helps more people come forward then that’s great because it wasn’t an isolated thing, it was common. Abuse victims don’t deserve or ask for what happens.

“We must listen to kids but the problem is no-one knows what signs to look for. If their behaviour changes, if they become more withdrawn, more sexualised or whatever they do in response to being abused, we have to look out for it and find out why.”

Sommerhoff was an internationally-renowned teacher, inventor and philosopher and was the great grandson of German composer Robert Schumann.

Before joining Sevenoaks School, Sommerhoff taught science at the prestigious Dragon School in Oxford and presented science programmes for the BBC from 1960-62.

In 1984 he retired from teaching and moved to Trinity College, Cambridge. He produced a number of books, including Logic of the Living Brain in 1974 and Understanding Consciousness in 2001.

Last week, in response to the out of court settlement, a Sevenoaks School spokesman said: “The School can confirm that it was contacted by a former pupil about allegations of abuse said to have occurred over 30 years ago.

“Given this concerned events so long ago – and did not relate to any pupils or staff currently at the School – the matter was dealt with by the insurers from that period.”

When approached with Mr Neilson’s allegations, a spokesman for the school said they do not wish to make any further comment.

Read more: http://www.sevenoakschronicle.co.uk/Sommerhoff-abuse/story-20094871-detail/story.html
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