A former Romford school pupil has come forward to help lawyers suing over historic sexual abuse, saying a paedophile teacher subjected him to an intimate back massage.
Lee Chalmers described former Royal Liberty School teacher Michael Quinlan’s paedophile tendencies as “an open secret”, saying the problem was discussed freely at school.
“I knew before I even went to the school ,” claimed Lee, who still lives in the Havering area.
“There were always rumours going about. How he got away with it is beyond me. How other teachers didn’t pick up on it is beyond me.
“Everyone called him Paedo Quinlan. It was just known. He would get called 'paedo', or 'The Kiddie Fiddler'. We all knew.”
The Romford Recorder has reported throughout this year on a class action lawsuit being brought against Havering Council by ex-pupils who say they were abused by Quinlan and other teachers between the early 1980s and 2003.
A letter before action has been sent to Havering Council, which told the Recorder it could not comment on unresolved legal actions.
Quinlan has twice been convicted of sexually abusing boys at the school – once in 2004 and then in 2022.
He left the school in 2003 after being arrested.
Lee, who began attending Royal Liberty in the mid-1980s, said he observed Quinlan behaving inappropriately as soon as he joined.
“If you forgot your kit, or if you were just a certain type of boy – if you were quiet or reserved – then you would get picked on,” he alleged.
“Quinlan himself would personally pull your shorts down and push you in the pool… I saw him do it to loads of people.
“Once you’d go back into the changing rooms, there’d be five or six of you in the shower and then he’d come in butt naked as well. It just wasn’t right.”
Asked how often Quinlan would do this, Lee replied: “Every time.”
Lee said he upset Quinlan one day by “sniggering” at him for mispronouncing another pupil’s name.
“He picked me up and threw me against a wall,” he claimed. “It was in the changing room. The whole class was in there when he did it.”
When Lee complained of pain in his back, he said, Quinlan allegedly took him to a small office next door.
“It had a closed door so he could do anything he liked in there,” said Lee.
“He sat me on his leg and rubbed my back for about five or ten minutes. I’m sitting on his knee while he’s got his little hot-pant shorts on, rubbing the small of my back. I was thinking, ‘This is the most peculiar situation. Is this what teachers do?’
“He was a creepy man. That made me properly wary of him. I thought, ‘This is just wrong’.”
After that incident, said Lee, “I wouldn’t go near him again. I stayed well clear.”
His efforts to avoid Quinlan involved bunking off school.
“I hardly turned up,” he said. “I was always in trouble. Just didn’t want to be there, because there was a predator in the school. I thought, ‘I’m just going to try to avoid this place’.
“If you went to PE, you’d make sure you had your kit on before you got there. When you went to school, you’d have it on underneath – just trying to get rid of any opportunity to see you getting changed or to get near you.”
Lawyers Charlotte Denley and Katherine Yates, at Andrew Grove & Co legal firm, are representing at least nine people with complaints about sexual impropriety linked to the Royal Liberty School.
Lee has contacted the solicitors to help them.
“I’m not interested in money,” he said. “But if I can add something to it and it brings a bit more credence to the case then I’m more than willing to help.”
He is concerned that Mr Quinlan manufactured situations giving him even more access to boys.
“He used to do weekends and weeks away, like orienteering, ski trips,” he said. “He was away with them for a week at a time and things like that. So God knows what happened.”
Royal Liberty is now run by the Success For All Educational Trust (SFAET), which describes its safeguarding as “exemplary”.
Havering Council has stated that it cannot comment on legal actions but now has strict policies in place to protect all school pupils.
Mr Quinlan did not respond to a request for comment.
*Anybody with information can contact solicitor Katherine Yates on 01223 367133 or at katherine@andrewgroveandco.com.
Catch up on our exclusive coverage of the Royal Liberty sexual abuse lawsuit:
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