Yehudi Menuhin School Under Investigation for Historic Abuse Claims

Between 1964 and 2007, allegations of abuse have been made by 22 former pupils

 

The UK police have launched an inquiry into the Yehudi Menuhin School, after 22 former pupils came forward with allegations that they had suffered sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at the hands of its staff.

The claims cover a wide-ranging period, dating from the school's earliest days in the 1960s through to 2007.

The inquiry comes as part of a decade of reckoning for Britain's renowned specialist music schools, during which several prominent abuse cases have come to light.

As early as 2003, British violinist and former Menuhin pupil Nigel Kennedy told The Guardian that young girls had been abused at the school, and alleged that he himself had almost been asked to leave after he offered a Mars bar to a fellow pupil, who was the object of a teacher's affections.

At the time, Kennedy said that the pupils involved did not feel they were able to talk about the abuse until 20 years later. Kennedy did not break his silence until he was sure that the teacher concerned, and the teacher's close relatives, were dead.

The issue of abuse in Britain's specialist music schools came back into the public eye in 2013, following a high-profile court case involving Michael Brewer.

Brewer was the director of music at Chetham's School of Music in Manchester until 1994. He received six years' jail time following trial in March 2013, while his wife (who was an accomplice) was sentenced to 21 months.

Peter Hullah, who was the Headmaster at Chetham's when the abuse took place, admitted that he had covered up the abuse by asking Brewer to resign under the false guise of "health issues." Hullah, who later became a bishop, has recently been banned for life by the Church of England (CoE) after multiple complainants came forward against him.

Commenting on the incident, the law firm Simpson Millar recently noted that the UK law does not presently require institutions such as the CoE to report these incidents to the police.

Two months after Brewer's 2013 trial, public attention returned to the Menuhin School. Three former pupils appeared in a Channel 4 inquiry and spoke out about their abuse at the hands of the pianist Marcel Gazelle, who died in 1969. Kennedy affirmed their narrative, telling the Evening Standard in May 2013 that Gazelle had been a "repeat offender."

In October 2022, the UK's wide-reaching Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse — whose first phase focused specifically on the heightened risks posed by residential specialist music schools — published its final report.

Examining all four specialist music schools in the UK (the Menuhin School, Chetham's, the Purcell School, and Wells Cathedral School), the report noted several instances of historic sexual abuse at the Menuhin School, including four more women who had been victims of Marcel Gazelle. 

Several allegations were more recent, including claims against a particular teacher who was teaching at the Menuhin School in 2014. Those claims dated from 2014, 2013, and 2006. A further claim was made regarding the teacher's conduct in the 1980s — though at that time, the teacher was also employed by another school, which has remained unnamed.

"There is no place for conduct of this kind in the Yehudi Menuhin School or in any residential music school and we condemn the abuse described in the report," wrote the school's Chair of Governors David Buckley, following the publication of the report in March 2022.

"The School has robust safeguarding arrangements in place, informed by lessons learned from the past, which we continue to review and monitor to ensure they remain in line with best practice," he continued. "Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and we are committed to acting in the best interests of every child and to upholding the highest standards in order to protect children and vulnerable groups."

The Menuhin School also made a statement regarding the current police inquiry: "The school continues to take these claims extremely seriously and is committed to ensuring they are dealt with as quickly as possible," the statement reads. "Since they are the subject of legal proceedings we are unable to comment in any detail at the moment."

"Some [claimants] say that after they left the school they had what could be called a nervous breakdown," added Malcolm Johnson of Lime Solicitors, which is representing the current claimants.