British police investigate sex abuse allegations at Princess Diana's brother's school

Police in the United Kingdom announced Monday that an investigation had been launched into allegations of sexual abuse by Princess Diana's younger brother at the boarding school he attended in the 1970s.

In a memoir published earlier this year, Charles Spencer recounted the difficulties he faced at Maidwell Hall school, including allegations that he was sexually abused and beaten.

Police in Northamptonshire, central England, confirmed they had opened a criminal investigation into “allegations of non-recent sexual abuse” at the school, which Spencer attended from the ages of eight to 13.

“This decision comes after police carried out preliminary investigations into allegations of abuse which allegedly took place in the 1970s at Maidwell Hall School earlier this year,” Northamptonshire Police said in a statement. statement, adding that the investigation was in its “early stages”. steps”.

In his memoir “A Very Private School,” Spencer, now 60, described how sexual abuse and beatings at school left him with “demons” for life.

The school said after the book's release in March that it was “very disappointing” to read about the experiences of Spencer and others at the time.

“We are sorry that this was their experience. It is difficult to read about practices that, unfortunately, were sometimes considered normal and acceptable at the time,” he adds.

Spencer described being assaulted by a nurse's assistant at school when he was 11 years old.

Early in the book he writes that it had been “at times an absolutely hellish experience, this long-ago chronicle of casual cruelty, sexual assault, and other perversions.”

Godson of the late Queen Elizabeth II, Spencer is the uncle of Princes William and Harry, Diana's two children with King Charles III.

The ninth Earl Spencer won worldwide acclaim for his moving eulogy at Diana's funeral in 1997, when his attack on the press for harassing his sister sparked a wave of applause from the crowd watching outside the Westminster Abbey.

AFP