The school closed down based on the findings of the OFSTED inspection in 1996.
Since the school closed - some staff have been investigated by police for child abuse .
Historic abuse investigations are still on-going so it is NOT possible to name any of those staff or abusers .
staff came and went at st Thomas mores school - NO CRB and NO DBS check - anybody that showed up for an interview wearing clean tidy clothes - paedophiles worked at the school regularly .
If you asked in the local village of East Allington about the school - you might get various responses and hear stories - BUT its unlikely you will ever be told about the secret abuse that went on at the school . many elderly villagers were never happy about a school being their their village .
St Thomas Mores school was registered as a special needs school - for children with Dyslexia , ADHD , aspergers , autism and it was school intened to offer education to boys aged 8 to 16 .
Despite the gossip and rumours the school was NOT a borstal or a reform school - you can check - the school was classed as 'special needs school' as already stated , some elderly residents in the local village did not like the idea of a boys school in their quiet village .
The school was a much different place in the 1960's , 1970's and 1980's - in those decades there was NO such thing as a CRB check - nobody had heard of a DBS update - NO such checks existed at all and some of the staff working at the place either belong in prison or on a register for life .
Because there were No checks and no regulations for staff - this often meant that unsuitable people were able to get jobs at the school . Staff that were caught having sex with boys were quietly asked to leave - the school did not report abuse to police because the school wanted to avoid investigations and scandal .
The amount of abuse that went on at the school was of the kind documentaries are made of , when theres a documentary on the television about a care home or school where undercover experts expose abuse - St Thomas Mores School was the same as those place's - though abuse was covered up so easily because the boys at the school were young , vulnerable and 'easy' to manipulate by staff .
Boys did try to report abuse , boys did run away from the school and were punished for doing so by the school - if boys told police about abuse at the school - the police repeated word for word what the boy had said back to the school and the school would brand the boy a liar and he would be punished by the school . The school would also manipulate other boys to call the boy a liar and give them treats or reward for doing so . Staff manipulated and bullied boys at the school . Any boy that spoke out or tried to report abuse would then be targeted and bullied by staff .
Devon & Cornwall Police FAILED to investigate or keep any log of incidents at the school ..... Actually Devon and Cornwall Police had problems of their own with a paedophile working in the police force in Devon at exactly the same time abuse was happening at the school - despite complaints about the paedophile police officer, PC Danny Bryant continued to serve and abuse boys for decades despite official complaints from the victim and his family - there was different culture back then... and reporting abuse to police was pointless . It wasnt until 2013 that PC Danny Bryant was finally brought to justice after other victims came forward . A link to the BBC story below .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-24851195
Boys knew they would be punished for saying 'nasty lies' about the school and it was that fear of punishment that kept other boys silent . To understand properly you would have to been there as a boy yourself and as mentioned already - it depended what year you were there - if you were at the school after 1991 your experiences might be very different as several staff had left or retired by then .
The school was started in the 1950s by an Australian lesbian Muriel Obrien , she herself had been in a mental institution in Australia and came to the United Kingdom along with her girlfriend a psychiactric nurse that she had met in Australia and the pair of them set about starting a home/ school specialising to care for mentally damaged or disturbed children that were not suited to mainstream school - there could be good money to be made from care , special needs children are 'expensive' and if youre running a care facility and running it the way they did - it was very profitable indeed . Muriel Obrien was a business women and was NEVER suitable to work with children at all really - she could put on a good act but she only cared about the money . MURIEL OBRIEN HAD NO TEACHING QUALIFICATIONS AT ALL - she taught classes in the school but was never trained or qualified as a teacher at all and since she was principal and in charge of her school - who would argue with her ?
there were No records or background checks in the 1950's - some people just seemed to slip through net .......these days a woman like Muriel O'Brien would probably be in Broadmore prison ... she was dangerously manipulative and quite a con artist . It was later discovered Muriel OBrien had No teaching qualifications but she had LIED for years and managed to keep that secret for decades .
Accommodation for the boys was poor , the boys dormitories were metal frame beds , lino hard floors and some rooms had a soft occasional chair but generally there was not much comfort at the school . The furniture was mostly tatty and second hand , the bedding was threadbare and mattresses were very old and covered in plastic covers . Running costs for the school were quite low since electricity and water were the only bills - the school was partly heated by oil heating but the house was always cold and very little was spent on heating . Most of the food was grown at the school on farmland and all the labour came from the boys - so was child labour . Housekeeping , cleaning and even building repair work was also done by child labour ( the boys) and there were no safety standards - children would be handling chemicals and doing mens work and they were forced into it - nobody actually wanted to do it - it certainly was child exploitation and child abuse .
The teaching staff were often untrained and low paid , some qualified teachers did work at the school but some were trained teachers but just not suitable to work in any school . Teachers would be drunk during the daytime and beat children , boys would be used like punch bags and some of the sick individuals working there belong in prison
NOT ALL THE STAFF ABUSED CHILDREN - BUT MANY STAFF DID KNOW ABUSE HAPPENED AND KEPT QUIET TO KEEP THEIR CAREERS - INDEED EVEN SOME OF THE STAFF WERE MANIPULATED BY MURIEL OBRIEN AND SOME SENIOR STAFF
Muriel Obrien sacked staff that had sex with boys .... that did happen .Muriel Obrien knew staff were hitting and beating children - it was often by her instruction - but she knew some paedophiles worked at the school and she even caught them abusing boys . It was never reported to police - Muriel Obrien just told the paedophile to leave and sacked them - the boy would be told to keep quiet about it and might have been given a treat like chocolate for his silence - Muriel Obrien did have favourites and was rumoured to have given lump-sum payments to some boys when they left school , to buy their silence - she did know how to groom and manipulate young boys .
ABUSE WAS EASY TO KEEP SECRET ...... Letters and telephone calls were ALWAYS monitored .
Letters and telephone calls were strictly monitored and boys were coached before being allowed a telephone call home - calls would be cut off - the parent would be told later by a phone call that the boys money had run out and the payphone cut them off - it was standard routine with the telephone - staff monitored all calls and boys knew if they started telling tales the call would be cut off .
Letters home were also checked before they could be sealed and all letters sent from parents were read by the school before the boy could read it - any sweets or money sent to the boy would be held in the office and the boy wouldn't be allowed to keep it himself .
A boy could NOT call childline - the telephone was a single pay phone for all the boys to use and was disconnected if there were no staff to monitor it . The payphone was located in a lobby area next to a staff toilet and staff would sit in the toilet while phone calls were made - listening to calls - there was
boys pocket money would be taken from them by staff - so boy could NOT use the phone without pocket money . Having pocket money and being caught with it was punishable - the same if a boy had a packet of sweets he didn't have permission to have - the staff were control freaks .
The food in the school was mostly vegetables grown by the school , stewed and often stored in a freezer for months and cuts of the very cheapest meat . Breakfast was porridge and sometimes toast on a Saturday - as a treat boys could also have cornflakes instead of porridge on Saturdays . all other days it was porridge or nothing .Porridge might be healthy but the stuff the school cooked was revolting .
There would be watery orange squash or strong tea served in winter at morning break times but the tea never had any sugar or sweeteners and was made using dried milk powder even in the late 80's boys rarely got fresh milk at all .
A boy actually smuggled a packet of sweeteners into the school and was punished because he didn't like the tea and wanted to sweeten it and was caught - he was beaten so badly in the dining room - no boy ever tried again .
staff came and went at st Thomas mores school - NO CRB and NO DBS check - anybody that showed up for an interview wearing clean tidy clothes - paedophiles worked at the school regularly .
the building is called FALLAPIT HOUSE or FALLPIT ESTATE postcode TQ9 7QF and was formerly called St Thomas Mores School until it closed down in 1997 - local authorities did know of rumours about abuse at the place though no formal investigations ever got off the ground and it was decided no more funding would be given for boys to attend the school - so it closed .
