An Abuse of Trust

An Abuse of Trust

Thirty years ago investigative reporter Roger Cook exposed a headmaster’s harsh and violent regime at a private school for BBC Radio 4’s Checkpoint programme.

When Derek Slade resigned Roger Cook thought his career in education was over.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. Despite a later criminal conviction for physical abuse Slade managed to go on abusing children in his care right up until 2008.

Now Roger Cook is back to find out how this happened in a new BBC One documentary made by BBC East Midlands.

An Abuse of Trust examines how Derek Slade stole the identity of a dead boy and conned charities to get access to children.

Despite a criminal conviction for physically assaulting school boys in this country, he went on to attack other boys in India and Africa.

In September 2010, the law finally caught up with Slade: he was jailed for 21 years on more than 50 counts of physical and sexual assault on boys at St George’s School in Suffolk between 1978 and 1983. Some of Slade’s victims were only eight years old.

The conviction came 28 years after Roger Cook first revealed on Checkpoint how Slade ran "a reign of terror" at St George’s.

Slade resigned.

The programme caused national outrage, but four years later Slade was convicted of physically assaulting two other boys at a separate West Sussex school.

Again the story made headlines across the UK.

Yet, as Roger Cook reveals, Slade was able to continue working in education until 2008.

The programme learns how Slade adopted a dead boy’s identity to disguise his past and, years later, managed to gain positions of trust in schools in India and Africa.

Slade even persuaded a charity to fund him to set up a school for orphans of the Gujarat earthquake.

Roger Cook tracks down some of the children who attended this school and hears first hand how they were abused by Slade.

He discovers Slade had recruited children who were not orphans and came from a village miles away from the disaster.

The programme also looks at how Slade exploited his contacts with people in high places to gain employment which led to access to children.

One of those was Derek Sawyer, an old friend of Slade who was periodically in business with him and acted as a character witness in court.

Mr Sawyer was leader of Islington Council, chairman of the London Courts Board and director of the youth offending charity Catch 22.

He maintains that he was taken in by Slade – he knew nothing about allegations of sexual abuse by him, playing an unwitting part in this unfortunate saga.

Had he realised that Slade posed a risk, he told us, he would not have associated with him.