A Havering couple who tried to blow the whistle on a paedophile PE teacher were prosecuted and left with criminal records, they have said.
Derek Edhouse and Lisa McKatherine claim their warnings about pervert Michael Quinlan were ignored, allowing him to continue abusing pupils at Romford’s Royal Liberty School.
Derek claims that when he complained about Quinlan ogling nude boys in the school showers, he was told the paedophile was “just a very hygienic man”.
Quinlan would later confess to being a child molester.
The couple are now working with solicitors suing Havering Council over Quinlan’s years of abuse and hope to finally quash their criminal convictions.
Derek and Lisa were prosecuted when their youngest son refused to attend Royal Liberty in the early 2000s – but insist they repeatedly told the school and social services that he was refusing to attend because his teacher was a paedophile.
Derek said the disagreement over his son’s truancy culminated in a confrontation at the school where he accused Quinlan to his face of being a paedophile, which he claims he did not deny.
Mr Quinlan did not respond to a request for comment from the Recorder.
It was only after Derek and Lisa were convicted over their son’s non-attendance and ordered to carry out community service that they learned Quinlan had since admitted being a paedophile.
He was jailed for 15 months in 2004 after admitting indecent assault and gross indecency offences, including padlocking the school pool from the inside and forcing boys to swim with him in the nude.
In 2022 Quinlan, then 73 and of Kelvedon Road, Chelmsford, was convicted of further indecent assaults and given a suspended sentence.
Lisa, 59, and Derek, 62, said they raised concerns about Quinlan repeatedly over a period of roughly eight years.
“He was reported,” said Derek. “I did it quite a few times. I’ve always said, in my own head, they were covering it up. That’s my personal opinion. Because we actually went up there about it.”
“It made us ill,” Lisa added. “It was like hitting our heads against a brick wall.”
The couple stressed that none of their three sons were abused by Quinlan, but all of them raised concerns with their parents about his inappropriate behaviour.
Derek said their sons all mentioned that Quinlan was known to look at boys in the shower.
“I went and complained", he added. "They told me, ‘There’s nothing in it, he’s just a very hygienic man’. My eldest boy never did any more sports in that school.
“Three times I complained and they said the same each time.
“The last time, we had a massive argument. I done my nut. The police were called. I got chucked off the premises.
“I said (to Quinlan), ‘You’ve got paedophile tendencies’. He just put his head down and didn’t comment.”
“Because the boys refused to go to school because of that teacher, they brought in social services,” said Lisa.
“We kept telling social services about it but we actually got victimised for it. For years, we had the fear that we were going to lose our kids if we kept speaking out.
“It should have been looked into as soon as the first report was made. How many kids could that have stopped from being abused?”
The Royal Liberty School is now part of a multi-academy trust which had no involvement in the school at the time of Quinlan’s offending.
At the time, it was a local authority school.
Havering Council has declined to comment, citing an ongoing lawsuit over Quinlan’s abuse, brought by Andrew Grove & Co solicitors.
The legal firm is bringing a civil suit against Havering Council on behalf of at least nine complainants who say they were abused at Royal Liberty over a period of decades.
Some have named other teachers, in addition to Mr Quinlan, as abusers.
Havering Council said it now had “strict policies and procedures” in place to protect all school pupils.
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