In the Aftermath of the Brewer Sentencing – A Few Short Thoughts and Pieces of Information
Posted: March 27, 2013 Filed under: Abuse, Chetham's, Musical Education, Specialist Music Schools 6 CommentsPetition for Public Inquiry into Abuse in Musical Education – November 2013
Today Michael Brewer was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment, Kay Brewer to 21 months. I have no intention of gloating over this or anything like this; imprisonment is an unfortunate necessity rather than something to celebrate, and I would not want to make this an issue of vengeance. The solution to a musical world permeated by hatred, contempt and dehumanisation is not simply more hatred. But there is still much to do in terms of raising public awareness of abuse in musical education.
Since starting the petition I have been inundated with correspondence, including a vast amount of testimonies to sexual abuse throughout the various specialist music schools and colleges, as well as equally disturbing information on sustained psychological abuse, sometimes with lasting and decimating consequences. This can never be justified, and I do not at all accept that it is in any sense a necessary part of musical education. There have even been crazy arguments suggesting that some of those who were abused, but went on to have successful musical careers, have nothing to complain about – an example of a truly distorted moral thinking. Human beings and their welfare are more important than music or art; human interests are more vital than aesthetic concerns. That to me is the bottom line, and nowhere is it more vital than in education.
In terms of dealing with the highly confidential and sensitive information I have received, I have been lucky enough to find a small group of people able to help me (dealing with this single-handed is just too much, in terms both of time and emotional energy, to handle). That said, nothing will ever be shared with anyone else without permission. Anyone with further information which they wish to share concerning any type of abuse in music education should contact me at ian@ianpace.com .Please do indicate if you would be happy for it to be shared with the team. We can advise on how best to proceed now, and are also in contact with the police. Please bear in mind that nothing will be shared further without permission, nor do we wish to place any pressure upon people in any respect.
Otherwise, I would like to urge everyone who has signed the petition (and anyone else) to write to their local MP, and preferably as soon as possible. The more MPs are made aware of it by constituents, the stronger the political pressure for an inquiry will be in Parliament. If you are not aware of who is your local MP, go to http://findyourmp.parliament.uk/ and enter your postcode – you should be provided with full contact details for him/her. Several of us working together have produced a basic template for the type of letter you might use which is printed below – naturally feel free to modify it or replace it with something else of your own. I would recommend including a short bit about yourself, in particular stressing any connection you might have to Chet’s or any other musical institution. I have included a clause for those who might be prepared to meet with their local MP – several people have already made appointments for this. If anyone plans to do this and wants some further briefing, please do contact me.
It is also naturally paramount to attach a copy of the petition, which is attached at the top of this post.
Otherwise, I will continue to collect a list of ‘additional names’ for the petition, so please do feel free to continue contacting me if you wish to support it.
As I have said before, I have plans to write at much more length about all of this on here in time. Right now that time is not available, but I hope to make a start over this weekend.
Thank you to everyone who has supported this campaign, and above all to those victims who have been brave enough to come forward. The following three links feature the most important broadcast features from the last two days:
http://www.itv.com/news/2013-03-25/sex-abuse-claims-spread-beyond-manchester-music-school/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21941874
http://www.channel4.com/news/chethams-sexual-abuse-andrade-manchester-music-school
I intend to give a big series of links to wider articles in due course. The following article from today, by the pioneering Guardian journalist Helen Pidd, is especially important – http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/mar/26/chethams-music-school-sexual-abuse-inquiry
The full remarks of the judge prior to sentencing can be found here – warning, these are extremely graphic and could act as a trigger to some – http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgments/r-brewer-sentencing-remarks.pdf
I am particular pleased (as much as one can be ‘pleased’ with anything here) that he chose to draw attention to the ways in which so many prominent people were prepared to back Brewer, in full knowledge of his crimes, because of some misguided ideas that his artistry mitigated against this. To confuse the artist and the person is to me one of the most fundamental errors which has corrupted artistic life at least since the 19th century – it both legitimises henious behaviour on the part of artists, and also makes it possible for music teachers to colonise and dominate their students’ whole beings, as well as to make musicians stand and fall as people purely on grounds of their particular artistic achievements. If there could be some more scepticism about this misguided notion (which some of us who have studied music under dictatorial regimes, and seen the patterns of cynicism, compliance, and complicity which can result, know to be fallacious), then something positive will have been achieved.
Dear (Member of Parliament),
I am writing as a concerned constituent to ask you to support a petition calling for an independent inquiry into sexual and other abuse in specialist music education.
This petition has been signed by over 1000 people, the majority of them musicians, and includes over 300 former pupils from Chetham’s School of Music, one of the country’s leading specialist music schools.
The petition is attached as a PDF, and it can also be viewed online, with signatories and comments, at https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/petition-for-an-inquiry-into-sexual-and-other-abuse-at-specialist-music-schools-the-list-of-signatories/ .
The call for this petition has come in the wake of the recent conviction of Michael Brewer and his wife, Hilary Kay Brewer, on charges of sexual assault against Frances Andrade whilst she was a student at the school. Michael Brewer was Director of Music at Chetham’s when the offences took place. Frances tragically took her life during the course of the trial, and a wide range of further allegations have, as a result of the court case, surfaced since the verdict.
The primary initiator of the petition, Ian Pace (ian@ianpace.com ) has been contacted by a great many people with many other allegations to suggest that abuse was a widespread phenomenon, at least in former times, and that such abuse spread well beyond Chetham’s to other specialist music institutions throughout the country – many former victims are now finally feeling empowered, sometimes decades after the events in question, to go forward to the police.
On this basis, the signatories are calling for an inquiry into the many aspects of musical education and the workings of these institutions. It is hoped that an inquiry would set out to comprehend why and how such abusive behaviour could apparently so easily occur, and would seek to make certain that current and future procedures are robust enough to ensure that this may be prevented in the future, whilst safeguarding the best aspects of such education and protecting teachers as well.
The safeguarding of all children in education must be a priority to all, but the specialist nature of music education demands a vigorous approach to their safeguarding. The bonds between a music student and their teacher are, by their very nature, intense; the level of study is demanding and the commitment to the subject by both parties means that the relationship between student and teacher is a unique one.
I very much hope that you will see fit to give your own support to such an inquiry, which would, I believe, serve to strengthen the musical education in our country, for both current and future generations.
If you would like further information, [I would be more than happy to meet with you, or] you can contact the petition organiser, Ian Pace, at ian@ianpace.com
Yours sincerely,
Greater Manchester Police are conducting an investigation into a variety of complaints of sexual abuse related to Chetham’s School of Music and a dedicated Operation called “Kiso” has been established to support this. As an organisation, we recognise that reporting sexual abuse, which occurred some time ago is an incredibly difficult thing to do and we will afford anyone who comes forward, all the appropriate support to discuss events in their own time. We would urge anyone who wishes to report abuse or with information, to contact Greater Manchester Police on 0161 856 6777 or via email, op.kiso@gmp.police.uk. Alternatively, persons who wish to remain anonymous may contact Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111 .
Desiring Progress 
Dear Ian,
Without further ado, I must tell you that you deserve a medal for the vast amount of hard work that you have put into this painfully distressing matter to date; I cannot commend your efforts on this highly enough and I can well imagine the sheer amount of time and energy that it has taken. Boundless thanks for your dedication and determination.
Indeed there is no cause to gloat over the sentences passed yesterday. That said, I did hear quite a few raw and pessimistic comments between conviction and sentencing that the Brewers might get off with sentences broadly in line with those of Huhne and his ex-wife, or even mere suspended sentences. It does, however, appear that justice has been done after all (insofar as “justice” can ever really be done in such circumstances); I have read the transcript of the judge’s pre-sentencing observations which, whilst harrowing indeed, demonstrates that, despite his apparent endorsement of the Brewers’ barrister at the trial itself, he has pronounced on the case with due dignity, sensitivity and good sense but with no holds barred.
The idea, about which you write, that those abused as students who have gone on to have successful musical careers have nothing about which to complain makes me seethe with a rage that must be contained; likewise, the idea that some have put forward that such behaviour might in certain cases be an inherent constituent of 1-1 teaching of singing and instrumental playing incites similar responses in me. Leaving aside the utterly disgusting and inhuman nature of such views, they do not even stand up to the plain and simple logic that determines that any kind of abuse of a student by a teacher runs entirely counter to the very things the teacher is supposed to be doing for his/her student’s benefit.
You write that “human beings and their welfare are more important than music or art; human interests are more vital than aesthetic concerns”, with which there can, of course, be no reasoned argument whatsoever; one might nevertheless like to think that those charged with the teaching of music in particular ought to be at least as aware of this, if not more so, than their colleagues in the education profession – and I suspect that some parents of abused children might well be even more horrified to learn that certain music teachers, of all people, can wilfully cast all such human considerations aside in order to satisfy their appetites for sexual gratification and predatory power over vulnerable minors. That said, the need to be able to separate the person from the musician is absolutely vital towards a proper and balanced understanding of what has been going on. I agree wholeheartedly with all that you write about this.
Whilst I am in one sense dismayed to learn that you have received “a vast amount of testimonies to sexual abuse throughout the various specialist music schools and colleges, as well as equally disturbing information on sustained psychological abuse, sometimes with lasting and decimating consequences”, I am at the same time pleased that such people have felt able to come forward with these, doubtless encouraged in no small part by the example of the extraordinary courage of Frances Andrade herself; thank you once again for offering to them the opportunity to confide in you, thereby providing further tranches of evidence of the terrifyingly widespread nature of this kind of activity in music education establishments and which will all come to be grist to the mill in support of the full public inquiry that you are seeking.
I refrained from writing to my MP earlier and am now glad that I did, because I can now do so with the benefit of your excellent draft letter, the petition .PDF and the fact that sentence has now been passed on the Brewers; I shall accordingly write to him later today. I know that he has more interest than some in music education and, as far as abuse is concerned, a recent quote from him runs “…the much wider and far more serious issue around allegations of domestic violence and the mistreatment of women. Locally, I take these issues extremely seriously. I was delighted that we were able to lobby the government successfully to fund a rape crisis centre in Herefordshire in 2011. I met recently with the police superintendent in Hereford and we specifically discussed the under-reporting of domestic violence in the county, and his plans to address it. I also raised this issue at a meeting last month with the new police commissioner. But there remains far more work to be done on these issues, and I would be delighted to meet with West Mercia Women’s Aid to discuss them in detail.”. He’s quite a good fund-raiser and I understand that he put rather more than mere energy and persuasion into the creation of the rape crisis centre in Hereford. Not a bad record for an Eton-educated Tory, one might say!
I spoke to Levine Andrade yesterday evening; he and two of his sons were at the Court when sentence was passed (his eldest son was looking after their young daughter who, at age 10, does not fully comprehend the significance of what’s going on) and, whilst the judge’s remarks and the sentences themselves will no more provide “closure” than anything else will or can, I hope that they will at least have removed some of the thoroughly bad taste left by the judge’s omission in his trial summing-up to censure the Brewers’ barrister whose persistent and obsessively aggressive behaviour towards Frances may well have contributed to what finally tipped her over the edge. Levine seems still to be holding up remarkably well under the circumstances and I’m sure that he’s getting ample support from many sources; the very fact that the tragic outcome of this case is now encouraging other victims to come forward, not least with your welcome encouragement of them to do so, can only be seen as its one positive consequence and I think that Levine is also finding this heartening. Levine has lived with this privately ever since he and Frances got together; they would have been celebrating their silver wedding around now.
Anyway, once again, please accept a fulsome round of applause for all that you have done and continue to do with this.
With very best wishes,
Alistair
Dear Ian,
I find that the link to the .pdf of the petition generates a “404 – Not Found” error message, although the link that you have provided to it on the blog does work. I realise how busy you are, but could you perhaps look into this? (I’m copying this to Joss and Justine just in case).
Many thanks.
All best,
Alistair
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