UNITED KINGDOM
The Times
Andrew Norfolk, Chief Investigative Reporter
March 3 2017
The Times
A man accused of several sex offences against a 12-year-old boy is head of music at a top public school, it can be revealed after a gagging order was lifted.
Sean Farrell’s role at Wellington College, in Crowthorne, Berkshire, was kept secret when he appeared before magistrates last week.
He is charged with sex crimes said to have been committed in North Yorkshire three decades ago against a pupil at Ampleforth College, a leading Roman Catholic school.
Reporters and the public were ordered to leave the court in York last Thursday before Deputy District Judge Edward Barr banned the media from revealing where and in what role Mr Farrell was employed.
The restriction had been requested by his former wife. It was overturned yesterday after a challenge by The Times, which said that Judge Barr had no power to make it.
Mr Farrell, 49, is a former Ampleforth pupil and his alleged victim was at Gilling Castle, the college’s prep school at which Mr Farrell had been a student music teacher between 1985 and 1986.
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