Historical Brit paedophile gets 21 years
At the start of the month, former teacher Derek Slade who had worked at two English private schools was found guilty of multiple counts of physical and sexual abuse against boys between 1978 and 1983. This week, Slade was subsequently jailed for 21 years and will serve 14 before being eligible for parole.
It’s the longest sentence handed down to an English historical sex offender since the creation of this blog. Tribute must be paid to not just the adult witnesses that reported him but also the police, who did not give up the case entirely when Slade could not be traced. The subsequent multiple disclosures from pupils at the second school led to the teacher being located by the forces, arrested and charged with all counts. Hopefully this approach will continue as the sentence is better when more than one victim makes a report.
In the week where Catholic CSA is back in the news, it’s good to have a “win” for survivors and an acknowledgement of the impact of historical abuse now that the male survivors are in their 30s and 40s.
Read about the case on the BBC site here. In the new redesign at BBC News, the historical story crawl is now at the bottom of the page.
– CBG
