A man has claimed to a jury that he was locked in an isolation room for two weeks without human contact during his time at a now-closed South Derbyshire school, which is at the centre of court proceedings.
He told the jury: “We were naughty. We were being punished. We thought we deserved it. But looking back it was more than that.”
The witness at Derby Crown Court also alleges he received two black eyes and, later, a split lip from his teacher before he ran away from the old Overseal Manor School twice, each time being returned by police officers. These incidents are said to have happened in the late 1970s.
Former teacher Terence Butler, 73, of Beech Lane, Stretton, faces six charges of actual bodily harm against former pupils, and two charges of false imprisonment, all alleged to have been committed between 1977 and 1985. He denies all the charges.
His co-accused, 71-year-old, also a former teacher there is Christopher May, now of Dan Y Coed, Llanfyllin, in mid-Wales. He is charged with five counts of indecent assault, two of indecency with a child, four charges of attempting to commit a serious sex assault, one charge of grievous bodily harm and eight of causing actual bodily harm. He denies all the charges.
Three other teachers allegedly involved in the incidents have since died, the court has been told.
The alleged incidents are said to have taken place at the school which used to be based in Hall Croft Avenue, Overseal, and catered for boys with learning difficulties, those who had been in trouble with the law, and those in care. It closed in 1997.
Butler taught there from 1972 to 1982, while May was there from 1973 to 1987, the jury was told.
The court has already heard that one former pupil referred to the school as 'Colditz' after the German prisoner of war camp, and that several pupils allege they received broken noses and other injuries allegedly at the hands of May and Butler during the 1970s and 1980s, which the pair deny.
Another pupil is set to tell the jury pupils were locked in a coal cellar for three days without food and others said they ran away, describing their time at the school as the 'most terrifying experience of my life', prosecutor Graham Huston has said.
The jury has now heard from a third witness via a video interview he carried out with police in April 2016 and again in May 2017. He had been put into care and sent to Overseal when his mother could not cope following a death in the family, the court heard.
He said: “There were lots of occasions. I can’t even tell you exactly when they started.”
He alleged that he was in Butler’s class when the teacher pulled out a plimsole which he later hit the children with.
He said: “He used to have a big slipper, more of a plimsoll, which he called his rhythm stick. We had been singing that song (Hit me with your Rhythm Stick) in class. He wrote ‘rhythm stick’ on it and held it up so we could see it. You knew that if you were singing you would get it; he just started bashing us, whack, whack, whack.”
In another alleged incident, the witness said: “I may have said something he didn’t like and Mr Butler split my lip so at break time I ran away from school. I walked all the way to Derby, which was about five or six hours, and a police car came up to me.
"I said, I was trying to get home, I had run away from school because my teacher beat me up. They said ‘get in the car’ and rather than turn to my house they took my straight back to the school.
"The head teacher came out, some words were said and he told them leave it with me. Then he dragged me upstairs by my ears and threw me into my bedroom.”
The following day the witness alleges he was approached by another teacher, who is now dead, who is alleged to have said to the young boy: “Do you know what we do to stop people running away?”
The witness alleges the teacher then ‘stamped down’ on his ankle and he felt something crack.
The witness said: “He told me not to tell anyone or there would be more to come. He told me to say I had jumped from the air raid shelter and landed funny.”
The boy was taken to Burton’s Queen’s Hospital where his leg was put in plaster for six weeks, he told the court.
The witness says that more than 30 years later he is still having problems with that ankle and has needed surgery on it.
He added: “My left foot is a size 8 and my right is a size 6. My right leg is shorter than the left leg.”
He also named seven pupils who he said were with him in the classroom when he claims his lip was split.
He told the jury of a time when pupils had been in the television room watching Top of the Pops. They had started singing along and were told to be quiet by Butler. The witness said Butler started ‘laying into’ him.
He told the jury: “I got two black eyes and I assume a broken nose because it wouldn’t stop bleeding and I couldn’t breathe through it.”
He ran away again and this time got as far as Swarkestone Bridge before a police car picked him up and took him back to school.
This time, he said the head teacher dragged him into a disused bedroom, known as the isolation room.
He alleges: “I was there for two weeks and no-one was allowed to come in and see me. The housekeepers brought me food three times a day and I was given books to read but I went without seeing a soul. I think it was until all the bruising had gone.”
He also told the court he was in the classroom the time a boy allegedly started attacking May with a knife.
He said: “We had started messing around. Mr May came flying over to me and hit me in the back of the head and body, I went under the desk. The boy started pushing May and got a knife and all the children ran outside to the courtyard and left the boy and Mr May, The head teacher split them up. We never saw that boy again.
“Normally Mr May would do that away from prying eyes.”
In another alleged incident involving May, the witness said he was punched by the teacher while the witness and a friend were smoking in a pig sty on the school grounds.
He said: “He chucked away our cigarettes and he laid into us and started punching us in the stomach and the back of the head.
"I remember looking at him and you could see his face and his tongue sticking out; that’s when you knew you were going to get it,” he said.
“There were a few times when he caught you doing something wrong and he wouldn’t think twice about beating you,” he added.
He also alleged that he was often sexually abused by a female worker in the school.
He later added: “We were naughty, we were being punished, we thought we deserved it. But looking back it was more than that. Then we didn’t see it as anything other than just the way the place is run. It was part of life then but looking back now it was completely wrong.”
The trial continues.
