Housemaster at Westminster Cathedral Choir School Guilty of Molesting Ten Boys Including Chorister Who Sang at His Wedding
Daily Mail
A former housemaster at a leading Catholic public school has been found guilty of a string of historic sex assaults on young boys, including a chorister who sang at his wedding. David Lowe, 61, who taught English and music, was today convicted of abusing six boys aged under 14 while teaching at Westminster Cathedral Choir School in London in the 1970s and 1980s. The married teacher, who now lives in Bristol, was also found guilty of indecently assaulting four boys while working at Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire – one of the country's leading Catholic public schools where boarding fees are currently more than ?31,000 a year. A jury of seven men and five women at Southwark Crown Court took around nine-and-a-half hours to convict the Cambridge English graduate of 15 counts of indecent assault against 10 young boys between 1978 and 1984. Dressed in a dark suit with an open-necked blue shirt, Lowe – who was supported by wife Ursula throughout the trial - looked emotionless as the jury returned majority verdicts on all 15 charges. During the trial, the court heard how the former housemaster indecently assaulted some of the young boys in Westminster as they lay in their bunks in communal dormitories. He fondled other pupils during individual singing lessons, in his office or flat, or as he smacked them on their bare bottoms as punishment, the court heard. Former pupils said Lowe 'bribed' them with sweets and compliments while asking them to say nothing about the abuse. Earlier in the trial, Prosecutor Philip Bennetts QC said: 'David Lowe had a small group of pupils that he was extra-friendly with. 'He would leave sweets in his locker and notes, [like], "You're very special, you deserve this, enjoy". One victim, a former pupil at Westminster Cathedral Choir School, told police he was among 'a select group of boys' asked to sing at Lowe's wedding in 1981. Later that year, he said he was sexually assaulted in Lowe's car after he was invited to visit him in Yorkshire. Another victim, a former Ampleforth student, said Lowe had a 'mad-scientist look' and subjected him to 'painful' and 'bizarre' abuse during music lessons. Giving evidence, the pupil said he was just 10-years-old when he was indecently assaulted during private piano lessons in the early 1980s. He told the court: 'The bit that I remember, because it was most disturbing, was that he was pressing really quite hard, to the extent it was quite painful, in my crotch area with his hand in a sort of cup-position. 'It was painful, it was bizarre and it was inappropriate.' A former Westminster pupil also described to the jury how the former tutor rested his hands on his tummy and instructed him to 'sing using your diaphragm' during a music lesson.
The Cambridge graduate then felt the boy's bottom on several occasions during the one-on-one music lesson, the court heard. The victim said he was about 10-years old when their 'disturbing' interactions began and described it as 'unequivocally sexual abuse'. The pupil, now in his 40s, said Lowe knew the attacks were 'not in the school curriculum' at the elite Catholic prep school. He said he even once begged a classmate to stay behind at the end of the lesson, because he 'didn't want to be alone with this chap David Lowe'. He pleaded with a friend: 'Stay behind with me mate, won't you?' to try and avoid Lowe in the school library, the jury was told. He told the court: 'He called me upstairs to his room and I remember thinking, "Here we go again, I'm going to get some more of this".' He said his memory was 'crystal clear' of Lowe telling him to take down his pants and lie across his lap while the teacher molested him.
Lowe then bought him sweets and whispered: 'Just remember, it's our little secret, ok?'. The victim added: 'I knew that he knew what he had just done upstairs was not in the school curriculum'. 'That is the pattern that it took.' He added that he had been molested by Lowe 'possibly a dozen times in all' but said he finally reported the abuse to police after years of silence. Another victim described how he had been in the dormitory of the Westminster school on a number of occasions when Lowe would be checking up on students at lights out and 'his hand would go into the duvet and then try to get into our bottom pyjamas'. The prosecutor quoted the victim as saying: 'I don't think they (other masters) suspected anything under their own noses. 'And yet a married man in the school was (abusing boys)...he seemed to take every opportunity when he was on duty at night to be able to touch the boys under the duvet.' Mr Bennetts also told how another victim at Ampleforth was plied with sweets and compliments for a year before the abuse began. He said the abuse began with 'massages' and then 'gradually over a period of time he would go further than just a massage'. 'During the assaults he would whisper: "I think you're a very special boy",' he told the court.
One of the victims later told his mother he had been touched by Lowe, who then reported it to the then-headmaster of the Westminster school, Peter Hannigan, via a family friend. Mr Hannigan, who worked at the school between 1977 and 1995, and hired Lowe in 1978, earlier told the court: 'Mr Lowe was a good teacher. There was never anything sexual.' Lowe was finally arrested in November 2012 at his former home in Oxted, Surrey. Throughout the trial he insisted he had no sexual interest in children and claimed the only physical contact he had with boys was when he tried to help them relax. The jury heard how the housemaster left the Westminster school, based in Victoria, in 1981 after one of the victims reported the abuse. However, later that year he was offered a job at Ampleforth College, near York, where he stayed until 1988. Lowe is due to be sentenced on February 5.
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