Child abuser in our midst: ‘He was like the Pied Piper, children flocked to him’

Marilyn Hawes, a teacher whose sons were sexually abused, is working to change how schools warn children about grooming

Marilyn Hawes vividly remembers the first time she met Jeff Carney. It was 1981, and she and her husband were at church in Wokingham with their one-year-old son. “He was in a pew behind me tapping me on the shoulder saying: ‘You’re a lovely mum. Where’s your little boy going to go to school?’” Carney explained that he was the new headteacher of the local Church of England primary school, telling her: “A boy really needs a man on the staff.”

Thus began a friendship that was to have devastating consequences. Every week, Carney would talk to Hawes after church. Eventually her son became a pupil at his school, followed by his younger sister and twin brothers, born in 1986.

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2QCir0N