A secondary school in Essex has employed a teacher who previously confessed to engaging in sexual acts with children. Stephen Jackson, aged 72, taught English to children aged between 11 and 13 at Tendring Technology College earlier this term. Concerns were raised by Essex police and Jackson was fired after a fortnight of lessons this term. Jackson had previously confessed to police in California that he had molested schoolboys. He had also worked at a school in south London without detection. The Guardian has spoken to three men who claim that Jackson abused them when they were children at his travelling school. One of these men, Jon Warner, said that Jackson had given him a massage, but had forced him to touch him inappropriately.
According to Muldoon, Mr. Jackson’s particulars and references were provided to Tendring Technology College by Red (Recruitment for Education) in June 2017. The references spoke positively of Jackson and included his tenure in teaching positions in the United States of America and the United Kingdom from as far back as 1984. At Tendring Technology College, they take safeguarding very seriously, and they have re-examined their safer recruitment practice to ensure it is robust, effective, and up-to-date.
The references provided by Knights and Yeshiva Toras Chaim, a Jewish boys’ school in Denver, Colorado, also vouched for Jackson’s teaching credentials. In January, Toras Chaim was informed about Jackson’s previous admission of sexual molestation by Durant, as well as the 1996 police report, but they did not respond to inquiries from The Guardian.
Siân Shrimpton-Davies, Red’s director, maintained that they directly took up Mr. Jackson’s references with the referees and shared them with the school, and none of them expressed any misgivings about him working with children. Furthermore, the FBI and Colorado Bureau of Investigation provided police clearance documents, which confirmed that Mr. Jackson had no criminal record.
In 1995, Jackson adopted a Romanian four-year-old boy who was taken away from him in January 1996 due to Jackson’s unsavoury behaviour. A police report dated July 1996 noted that the boy had reported that Jackson had sexually touched him to his new adoptive parents.
Around the year 2000, Jackson adopted another son from Ukraine, but he was removed from his care in 2002 after Jackson resigned from a school in Massachusetts following allegiations he invited a male student to his home, where they soaked in a hot-tub, and he asked the student to let him view his nipples. Although Jackson denied the charges, the Massachusetts social services stated that they removed children only when they felt their immediate safety was threatened.
Mr. Jackson did not respond to emails or calls from The Guardian team attempting to get his comments.