Lindsay Brown: Rugby commentator Mark Robson kept Bangor Grammar School abuse secret

Mark Robson has one of the most recognisable voices in rugby commentary.To outsiders, he has been living the dream - travelling the world covering a sport he is passionate about.But in reality, he was suppressing a dark and distressing secret.He was abused at Bangor Grammar School by the prolific paedophile Lindsay Brown.The vice principal served two sentences for abusing boys at the County Down school - seven years in 1998 for a catalogue of abuse between 1968 and 1982 and for a further eight months for similar offences in 2021. He died in 2023.
Warning: This article contains distressing content
"He had a type and I was it: blonde hair and blue eyes," Robson told the BBC's The State of Us podcast."I didn't tell anyone, not even my schoolmates. I thought I was the only one."Speaking on the podcast, Robson has revealed publicly for the first time the extent and impact of the abuse he endured from Brown.
'I was in denial'
Robson describes Brown as a charismatic and very popular teacher. "All the parents loved him, all the staff loved him," he said."The boys who weren't being abused loved him."His grooming technique, which I'm not going to reveal because I don't want to give anyone any ideas, was incredibly clever and incredibly devious because he made me feel that he loved me."Not telling anyone was part of Robson's attempt to deal with what had happened to him. That continued until he was well into adulthood."I loved my life because I refused to accept this had ever occurred," he said."I was in denial, I buried it."
When he was 28, Robson received a phone call that changed everything."It was the then (police) vice squad and they said, 'We hear you were one of Lindsay Brown's boys'. I'll never forget the words the girl on the phone used."The effect on me was catastrophic."It was only then I realised what had happened to me."The commentator was about to go to New Zealand to cover the Commonwealth Games for the BBC. "I went completely nuts in New Zealand," he said."We broadcast all day and drank and partied all night - that was my way of trying to drown away these thoughts that were in my head."When he came back, he developed symptoms of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) and said he went into "complete mental and physical freefall".That lasted for almost 20 years.By the time he was 40, he had left his job at Sky Sports and came home to Bangor to live with his parents."I became non-verbal for two years and I was confined to the house - I disappeared," he said."I didn't see the point in speaking. My head at that time was full of white noise. I had no room for words."
Disclosing to his parents what Brown had done was difficult. Neither had any idea their son was one of his victims.When he was ill and housebound, Robson said his father became his rock and cared for him every day."He would tell me to get up out of bed and have a cup of tea - and he was right. If I did that, it was a successful day."While his recovery has been slow, he is now back working as a successful commentator."For the last 15 years, I have been well," he said."I still have this burning anger - mostly directed at the world. I'm angry about him and what happened and it affects my personality."His escape, he said, has been exercise. He enjoys fell running in mountains around the world and sea swimming close to home in Bangor."It releases endorphins and has helped me to recover," he added.You can listen to the full interview on The State of Us podcast on BBC Sounds.If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this story please see the BBC's Action Line for groups and resources which may be able to help.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Times

an hour ago

• Times

Bradford is the grooming ‘hotspot' of the UK, victim warns

Fiona Goddard was just 14 and living at a children's home when she was targeted by a grooming gang based in Bradford. She was plied with drink and drugs, repeatedly raped and 'in effect used as a prostitute' before falling pregnant to one of her abusers, a court heard. Nine Asian men were jailed for committing 22 offences against her in 2019, but six years on she believes predators continue to plague her home town. PA 'It's definitely still going on,' Goddard, now 31, warned this week as she described Bradford as the overlooked hotspot of grooming in the UK. She is among thousands of young people who may have been failed by authorities over the past 20 years, according to campaigners who claim the problem here could dwarf similar scandals in Rochdale and Rotherham. A dossier compiled by a child abuse lawyer and a Bradford-based MP maintains that up to 8,000 children were at risk of sexual exploitation between 1996 and 2025. Baroness Casey of Blackstock, whose audit of grooming cases this week prompted a national inquiry into the issue, said she would be 'surprised' if Bradford was not one of the first areas to be investigated. With the spotlight finally falling on the city and its surrounding suburbs, The Times met survivors, campaigners and residents who fear child sex attackers have become emboldened by the nation's attention focused elsewhere. Speaking as families enjoyed ice creams and water fights in the warm weather on Thursday, Goddard welcomed the new inquiry but stressed that the authorities must not view the issue as purely historical. She revealed that within the last fortnight alone at least two incidents have left local parents seriously concerned for the safety of their children. On June 10, West Yorkshire police arrested a 70-year-old man on allegations of sexual assault after a report that two children were inappropriately touched at a park in Allerton village, three miles from Bradford. Footage of the arrest, seen by The Times, shows the suspect trying to escape by reversing his car down a residential road at high speed as officers chase after him on foot. The man was taken into custody and later bailed with conditions. Five days later, on Sunday evening, officers were again called to a report of a suspicious vehicle in Wibsey village, south of Bradford, after residents claimed teenage girls were being supplied with 'alcohol and balloons' in the back seats. Officers interviewed two men inside the car and searched the vehicle, before issuing them with out-of-court disposals for possession of class C drugs. Another victim of a Bradford-based grooming gang who bravely waived her lifelong right to anonymity is Scarlett West, who is now 20. Despite living in Tameside, about an hour away in Greater Manchester, she was routinely ferried to Bradbury by her abusers before finally breaking free from their influence two years ago. Marlon West, her father, said the abuse is now 'worse than it's ever been' because perpetrators have exploited 'political correctness' to create a culture of silence in the UK. Scarlett, who attended a private school, 'went off the rails' after being physically attacked by a gang of boys at a bus station. Vulnerable, she was befriended by an older white woman who allegedly groomed her and introduced her to a group of predominantly British-Pakistani men. 'Scarlett was being trafficked around the country to a number of places, but Bradford, she was taken there hundreds of times,' her father said. The area 'is on a different level', he added, because it 'has not had the limelight' like other areas and the criminals 'believe they can get away with it'. Both Goddard and West, who do not know each other and suffered abuse a decade apart, said that snooker clubs in the city had been hubs of grooming activity. At least one has been closed down by police over allegations of child sex offences. When The Times visited the site of another club identified this week, it had also shut after going out of business. It is now used as a youth club. Its new owner, who asked not to be identified, said he was saddened but not surprised to learn of the building's history given the area's reputation for grooming. Goddard said she believes the 'dynamics' of grooming operations 'are changing' as the public becomes more vigilant to vehicles loitering on street corners. 'Rather than just pulling over in cars and seeing them on the street, they're [now] getting in touch with vulnerable people on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok,' she said. • Officers at Greater Manchester Police who specialise in child exploitation agreed. Grooming is 'evolving' and has become a 'broader' issue than it was two decades ago, they said, driven by the ease with which predators can now contact vulnerable children on the internet. Many traditional routes used by offenders — through care homes or schools, for example — have been 'closed' by better safeguarding, the force said, but the digital world was 'where the opportunity is'. 'Exploitation is still happening,' Detective Superintendent Alan Clitherow, head of the force's major child sexual exploitation investigations, said. 'It's still happening here, it's still happening nationally. We're constantly having to keep pace with how it's evolving.' But he said the grooming gangs phenomenon does 'not look the same today' because law enforcement is better equipped to tackle it after learning 'a lot of lessons' from various reviews. 'You're therefore not going to have the same level of long-term bespoke offending, but that doesn't mean that it's not happening,' he added. Detective Chief Inspector Dan Hadfield, who leads the force's online child abuse investigation team, said there were still 'definitely people working together in a certain town', but that offenders now often operate across borders thanks to the internet. 'It's not as focused as it once was,' he said. In Greater Manchester, white men are overrepresented in online child abuse cases, accounting for 82 per cent of suspects — a higher proportion than the local white population of 76 per cent. However, Asian men are disproportionately represented in group-based child abuse cases — those involving multiple perpetrators or multiple victims — and make up more than half of such offenders. Robbie Moore, the MP for Keighley and Ilkley who helped to compile the dossier about Bradford, accused the local council of obstructing independent insight into the scale and nature of sexual offending. He said: 'It defies belief that over two decades ago since my predecessor Ann Cryer first bravely exposed the grooming gangs crisis right here in Keighley, the Bradford district has still never had a full independent inquiry.' Susan Hinchcliffe, leader of Bradford Council, said: 'This is an appalling crime that blights victims' lives. In Bradford we take this extremely seriously, so I welcome the renewed focus on this nationally. 'We work hard with the police to identify historic victims of CSE [child sexual exploitation] to get them justice and provide support. So far this has resulted in 52 perpetrators receiving prison sentences totalling 570 years. 'Over the last ten years we have published over 70 reports, independently authored reviews and data, including ethnicity data, for open scrutiny on this subject. We have nothing to hide.' Chief Superintendent Richard Padwell of Bradford District Police said tackling child sexual exploitation 'remains a top priority'. He added: 'We are taking a proactive approach and have invested significant resources into tackling exploitation and abuse. 'The work we have undertaken has resulted in hundreds of perpetrators now serving lengthy prison sentences totalling thousands of years. Many investigations are still underway, with more suspects set to stand trial between now and 2027.'

Daily Mail​

2 hours ago

• Daily Mail​

Black student says she was called 'monkey' as she suffered years of racist abuse at £17,000-a-year French private school

A black student has claimed she was called 'monkey' and suffered years of racist abuse at a £17,000-a-year private school in London favoured by the Parisian elite. Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle, in ritzy South Kensington, is run by the Agency for French Education Abroad, with day-to-day supervision overseen by the French embassy in the British capital. The Lycée is the educational establishment of choice for the mostly white Parisian professional class, including senior figures in the worlds of banking, diplomacy and academia, The Times reported. Scattered across multiple locations in London, the school charges fees of up to £16,923 a year for day pupils. Writing in the school's newspaper this week, Gabrielle, a sixth-form pupil described the sustained racism she had experienced while studying there. The teenager alleges that she was called a 'monkey' and told 'it is better to be dyslexic than black' - as well as being exposed to racist jokes on class WhatsApp groups. She also says that white pupils asked black students for an 'N-word pass' - the right to say the racial slur. 'Racism and xenophobia are widespread in all years. Reflecting on my personal experience, I realise that I have always evolved in a school environment where racism persists,' she wrote. Gabrielle claimed that non-black pupils used the N-word 'indiscrimately, whenever they want.' Even more shockingly, she also alleges that racist language was casually deployed by some teachers in a way that likely inspired the pupils to feel comfortable making similar remarks. She claims certain teachers made 'racist and incredibly xenophobic remarks' to non-white pupils, including 'king of the jungle' and 'close to monkey'. She added: 'There may be a correlation between the teachers' crude comments and the behaviour of the pupils, amongst whom there is now a tendency to make derogatory 'jokes' about what they call dirty Arab and black immigrants. 'Monkey insults are also very common towards black children, and some boys go so far as to proclaim that they "don't like black girls". Many justify their comments by labelling them as humour.' The teen says that the 'revolting remarks' over her seven years at the school have 'hurt me a lot' and forced her to 'build a shield for myself'. Her account of racism at the school has reportedly been backed-up by the experiences of parents and other ex-students. The mother of a biracial pupil at the school said the article had been a hot topic among pupils and parents - and that she had heard parents of non-white pupils discuss moving their children to other schools due to the racism directed at them. She blamed Parisian Catholics 'who are quite right-wing' and said they 'probably believe there are too many Arabs and immigrants in France'. The mother said too often systemic racism was dismissed as 'teasing' and that the German-occupation of France during WWII had led to a fear of being deemed a 'snitch'. The Lycée has a number of pupils from French-speaking African countries as well as British children whose families want them to get a bilingual education. The school has produced a number of famous alumni including actresses Jacqueline Bisset and Natasha Richardson. Former Tory MP Dominic Grieve also attended the school, while illustrator Quentin Blake, famous for his work on Roald Dahl's books, was a teacher there. The article was actually authorised by the Lycée's headteacher Catherine Bellus-Ferreira, who as appointed in 2023 and is also the 'director' of the school newspaper. She said she thought the article was 'courageous' and thought it shone the spotlight on a 'real issue'. The headteacher said that it was insufficient for the school to simply say 'we are against dicrimination', adding: 'It is important to me that this school struggles against racism.' She said there has been investigations into around a dozen of the school's 2,000 secondary-school students over the last 12 months. Pupils found guilty of racist behaviour face being suspended for eight days and potentially are required to attend mandatory workshops. Ms Bellus-Ferreira has helped overhaul the school's Ofsted rating after it received an 'inadequate' in 2023 due to 'too many weaknesses in how leaders work to keep pupils safe'. Last year the school was upgraded to 'good' for pastoral care and 'outstanding' for education. Ms Bellus-Ferreira said it would be dishonest to claim there was no instances of racism at the school, but that it was not 'a racist school'. The Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in London has a main site in South Kensington and three additional primary school sites, in Fulham, Clapham, and Ealing. The school was originally founded near Victoria station in 1915 as the French School of London to take French-speaking refugees from World War I. The school was visited by iconic French president General Charles de Gaulle in 1960 and the institution was subsquently named in his honour in 1980. The French system is facing a challenging time in the classroom, with 16 'serious incidents' reported per 1,000 pupils in 2023-24, according to a report by the education ministry.

BreakingNews.ie

3 hours ago

• BreakingNews.ie

Explained: What is Tattle Life? Why was the operator's identity revealed?

Website Tattle Life has been making headlines lately due to a high-profile court case in the North of Ireland. But what is the website? Why is it in the news? And why was the identity of the suspected operator revealed? Advertisement What is Tattle Life? Tattle Life is a gossip forum on which threads are started relating to a specific person. The threads often involve a public figure or celebrity, but also well-known community leaders. The website provides a platform for anonymous accounts to share their opinions on the person. Why is it in the news? Recently, there was a landmark legal victory secured against operator of Tattle Life. Advertisement Last week, the High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland granted an application by an Irish couple to lift reporting restrictions and name the defendants in their successful defamation and harassment case against the suspected operator of Tattle Life, Sebastian Bond, after a two-year legal battle. The ruling was made in favour of Neil and Donna Sands who successfully claimed they had been subject to a campaign of harassment, invasion of privacy, defamation, and breach of data rights on the Tattle Life website, which attracts up to 12 million visitors monthly, mostly in the UK. Businesspeople Neil and Donna Sands were originally awarded £300,000 (€350,000) damages against the operators of Tattle Life in late 2023. On the website, Mr Justice McAlinden said: 'This is peddling untruths for profit. A site built to monetise people's misery." Advertisement Sebastian Bond After the ruling, the owners of Tattle Life can now legally be identified as UK national Sebastian Bond, who also uses the alias Bastian Durward, along with Yuzu Zest Limited (a UK registered company) and Kumquat Tree Limited (registered in Hong Kong). Sebastian Bond is known on the internet as a vegan cooking influencer and author of the book 'Nest and Glow'. The Nest and Glow Instagram account has 135,ooo followers. Neil and Donna Sands said they were motivated to undertake the action not just on their own behalf but for all those impacted by the site over the years. In making his award, Mr Justice McAlinden noted: 'A day of reckoning will come for those behind Tattle Life and for those individuals who posted on Tattle Life. Advertisement 'To hasten that day of reckoning, it is appropriate that the court makes an award of damages to each plaintiff in this case. 'It would be remiss of the court to award costs on any other basis than indemnity. And on the defendant's business model, he said: 'This is clearly a case of peddling untruths for profit. 'It is the exercise of extreme cynicism — the calculated exercise of extreme cynicism — which in reality constitutes behaviour solely aimed at making profit out of people's misery. Advertisement 'People facilitating this are making money out of it… protecting their income streams by protecting the identity of the individual posters.' Why did Neil and Donna Sands take it to court? Neil Sands first wrote to the website's operators in February 2021, asking them to remove the defamatory thread or face legal action. They then formally initiated proceedings in June 2023. The couple was subject to defamatory and harassing commentary over a 45-page thread that was only finally removed in May 2025. In December 2023, the High Court in the North granted the £300,000 damages award and ordered that legal costs be paid on an indemnity basis, with further costs and third-party compliance expenses raising the total to be injuncted to £1.8 million. The 'cessation' figure - the amount payable by the defendants to lift the freezing orders - now stands at £1,077,173.00. This is understood to be the largest damages award for defamation in Northern Ireland's legal history and includes extensive freezing orders against the identified defendants and their corporate interests, now subject to continuing enforcement and disclosure proceedings. Neil Sands said: 'We undertook this case not just for ourselves but for the many people who have suffered serious personal and professional harm through anonymous online attacks on this and other websites. 'We believe in free speech, but not consequence-free speech - particularly where it is intended to, and succeeds in, causing real-world damage to people's lives, livelihoods and mental health. "We were in the fortunate position to be able to take the fight to these faceless operators, and it took a lot of time, effort and expense. "Along the way we heard many stories from those damaged by the scurrilous commentary on the website and we are glad to be finally able to shine a light into this dark corner of the internet. What we have established today is that the internet is not an anonymous place."