I have just returned from Macedonia and I am in the process of producing a blog or two about my trip but in the meantime just one or two thoughts on my old Alma Mater and the diocese that runs the establishment.
In my inbox as I returned was an e-mail from a trusted reporter of fact which I just thought I would pass on to you. In doing so I am reminded of the fact that I said that I would not draw the new head of St Bede’s College in Manchester through the mud until he had chance to prove himself. After all Brendan Rogers was given over three years at Liverpool before it was decided by the powers that he no longer was doing the job that they were expecting of him.
The new head at Bede’s only started in January 2015 after a cocked up process, I suppose caused by old Opus Dei Kearney throwing his dummy out of the pram in early 2014. So I suppose he cannot have 100% of the blame thrown on to his muscular shoulders for the abysmal performance at A Level of the 2nd year sixth at this year’s external examinations.
Last year 2014 had the stamp of Kearney all over it, when according to the Daily Telegraph, St Bede’s College in Manchester came 185 out of 320 private schools in England. This year unfortunately they came 285 out of 320, only Bury Grammar School, that well known academy for turning silk purses into sow’s ears, did worse in the north west.
Now to drop 100 places in just over three hundred in one year, smacks of more than Kearney’s influence and perhaps Mr New Head should put his hand up and take some of the blame. After all I think Mr Daniel Kearney has been treated abysmally by his friends and supporters and I would not like to see him suffer any more in his dotage.
We will not say anything more about these terrible results but I hope Mr New Head realises we are watching his every move. Let us face it, it is not that difficult to improve from 285 out of 320.
Another thing that came to my attention and has more to do with the Salford Diocese than St Bede’s College in Manchester although the passing on of bodily fluids did actually take place within the portals of this hallowed institute. Sometime in 2013 three boys from the 1957 intake having obviously read of our campaign against child sexual abuse at St Bede’s decided to fight their own corner and instead of coming to us, they went to that well known purveyor of slack justice in the North of England, Panone’s in Deansgate which had recently morphed into Slater and Gordon, the international firm of lawyers more intent at sliding victims through a process than fighting their client’s corner. Slater and Gordon’s man on the pitch is no other than Richard Scorer, the expert in sexual abuse or so his book goes. Scorer loves fast tracking victims he is not there at all for the long road, he has too many idiot clients. He went forward with two out of the three and within months it was all over. In and out and collect me money is Richard’s philosophy.
Now I have witness statements from these two lads given to me by my friends at Slater and Gordon albeit some time after the event and let me tell you they suffered some awful abuse from the groinal digit of Monsignor Thomas Duggan’s holy frame, over a lengthy period of time. To actually write out these statements must have put them through a trauma they would have liked not to have suffered. Two intelligent lads destined to go down hill from the age of 14. They have suffered terrible lives and they are now 72 years old and in need of financial and psychiatric help.
Witness statements taken in late December 2013, the court date fixed for the Manchester Court in early April in 2014, I had booked my flight and intended to be there for the whole hearing. Then Bingo!, the case was off, the two lads had agreed to settle out of court, my journey wasted. It seems the Holy and Venerable Catholic Diocese of Salford had offered the two, £5,000 apiece for Duggan’s phallic insertions. Scorer or a minion presented this magnanimous offer to the lads telling them that was the best they would get under the circumstances and that they should accept the offer immediately. The two men under tremendous pressure accepted, the Diocese paid the £10,ooo into court and some weeks later the kindly Slater and Gordon after taking their cut presented the two men with £300 pounds apiece.
Not a word in the newspapers, these private settlements are never reported, the Salford Diocese came away with not a smear, not a seminal smear on their good name. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. If that is love and goodness in a holy church give me hell any day.
Meanwhile on the first floor of I think they call the Gonne building, at St Bede’s College in Manchester on Alexandra Road, at the third door on the left as you walk from the staircase, the servants of the diocese are still trying to chip away the calcified drips of Duggan’s excitement from the cracks in the floorboards of his old study and pretending to the world that nothing happened here.
The solicitors only role is to get paid.. If it was justice they craved, they would not be solicitors..
In the business world it usually takes several years to turn a failing organization into a success. I doubt that the timescale could be very different in the world of education. If I’m correct, you can’t assess the new head properly until he has had at least three years, and perhaps five, to demonstrate what he can do. I don’t think it is fair to blame him for this year’s poor results.
On the other matter, an award of just 5000 pounds for being raped as a child is an insult. What a pathetic firm of solicitors. Do you have any news, Paul, about how the case with the other firm (whose name I have forgotten) is progressing? The last I heard, I got the impression that they were aiming for a far more realistic level of damages.
I was not blaming the new head but making him aware that we are still around watching him. Our case against the Salford Diocese is scheduled for early May 2016 in the High Court in London and it has been given a window of 15 days I think.
300 quid!!.They would have got more by claiming injury by a wonky paving stone.
I think Linda’s comment is based on the “tone” of your comments about the new head (I use lower case as it is not his name). The implication is one of blame, which I believe was your intention. Be critical if no improvement is made over a reasonable length ot time (not being an Educationalist I cannot decide what that may be).
I must admit during my time at St Bede’s I never heard of any of these events. I was up before Mon Duggan only once and other than the slipper for my misdemeanor nothing happened so I don’t believe I can comment.
To Bob
No one is solely blaming Richard Robson here, I would put most of the blame on Mr Kearney.
Of course he should be given time, perhaps, after Bede’s falling 100 places in one year in the League Table, things might actually be worse than he was led to believe in July 2014.
Furthermore, let’s remember that at the time of Mr Robson’s appointment, if he’d looked up the League Tables in the Telegraph, he would have been working off the August 2013 ones, not last year’s.
He might be now under the impression he has an even bigger mountain to climb than he thought. Ever heard the expression “Sold a pup?”.
To Linda
I do agree with your comments, unfortunately the last two headmasters at Bede’s both went after 3 years. I wouldn’t be too sure that Mr Robson will be given as long a time to turn around SS Baeda as you might want him to have. Previous history dictates otherwise, sadly.
I would like to hear from someone representing Slater and Walker if what is stated above is factually correct or incorrect.
Their silence in the matter should only draw one conclusion.
I’m not a fan of solicitors, I bracket them with politicians and tabloid journalists, when you read what happened to two of TD’s victims here, you can understand why.
Dear Paul,
I have followed your website info for 2 -3 years. I really would like to talk to you (in strict confidence, for now) as I am one of the 2 boys who decided to settle with the Diocese of Salford. The fact that you seem to have obtained the statement from one or other of the two psychiatrists I saw – arranged by Pannone – concerns me greatly. Something very strange did indeed happen in my case vis a vis my contact with my solicitors. The changeover from Pannone to Slater & Walker happened just before my case was due to go to the courts – and, even though I actually wanted my 3 days in court in Manchester because I wanted to tell the truth of what was happening at St Bede’s, I was massively persuaded to accept the £10.000 – not £5000 as you mention – as SW thought that they could loose the case. On reflection, I think that this was untrue and I was persuaded to take this pathetic pay-off ( for a lifetime of suffering) for all sorts of reasons that I still cannot understand. Yes, I wish I had contributed alongside the other former boys (2 of whom I know) with the London law firm going to court in May 2016, but I already knew (the old) Pannone and thought that Manchester was the best place to do this. At the beginning, I did not know of your own interest in the case and I had not come across your own site. I did get in touch with my former classmate, Mike Harding. So, I feel rather stupid and very angry the way that I was denied my day(s) in court. However, as the end payment deal was done so quickly, I did not sign any non-disclosure or confidentially clause with the D of S. So strange! My payment cheque was from S&W not from the D O S. Paul,I am happy to communicate with you but I do implore you to keep my real name out of this for the moment – yes, Alex Donato is a “nom-de-plume”, but I monitor this site every day. Do get in touch. Best Regards.
Hi Paul, Good to read you are still kicking on – dont leave a stone unturned – the St.Bedes experience that we personally enjoyed as consumers needs to be dragged into the full glare of public scrutiny and remain there.
Hi Paul, Sorry to read that the Court case came to nothing – Duggan couldn’t have operated without the compliance of the teaching staff – so I’d have them all in the dock – even if only charged with professional negligence e.g. the pratt Heaton – he masqueraded as my ‘form master’ during 1953-54…inept, indifferent, uncaring seem to be a reasonable assessment but there was also a downside to his qualities.
Regards
Andy
There is no such thing as the Gonne building. There is a:
Joseph Building, Beck building, Vaughan Building, Regis building, Henshaw building and a Gonne corridor on some of the old maps but I am not sure where it is.
Does it matter, its not its name but what went on is the crux of it all.
A pedant writes- the Gonne Building was through the doors at the end of the Lady Corridor (adjacent to that hideous Madonna statue).Upstairs were 4 classrooms- used by Upper 3rd in 1957.Below were changing rooms and a sloping floor into the indoor playground.
More pedantry-the Alexandra Road frontage WAS to have been completed.Bishop Casartelli laid the foundation stone of the North Wing on 23 July 1924. Unfortunately he died in 1925 and Bishop Henshaw scrapped project- hence the blank end wall.I think we should have a whip round to get”Banksy”to paint a huge mural of Gordon Frost on it.
(source-Volume 1 -“A History of St Bedes Manchester” by Lawrence A. Gregory -avail online, see College website) I claim my £25 !!!
Slater & Gordon not Walker – Alex Donato doesn’t know the name of his own lawyers? Sceptical post to say the least…