Pupils at the elite Southbank International School in London were victims of serial paedophile teacher William Vahey, the school has confirmed. The scale of the abuse is expected to be revealed later on Thursday in a letter to parents who are distraught at revelations that the trusted American history and geography teacher was a child molester who drugged boys and abused them on school trips.
"I can confirm there were students at the school who were victims," Sir Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of schools, and chairman of governors, told the Guardian.
Vahey, a 64-year-old American who taught at Southbank between 2009 and 2013, killed himself after being found with 90 images of boys. The FBI believe the children were drugged with sleeping pills and molested in assaults dating back to 2008.
The admission that he abused children at the Westminster school favoured by foreign business executives and diplomats will be a hammer blow to parents and children. Dropping off their children on Thursday morning, parents said they felt "upset and betrayed" because Vahey was a highly respected teacher. Many have suffered sleepless nights since the news of his child abuse emerged from the FBI on Tuesday.
Woodhead said the school is not yet in possession of the full information about the extent of the crimes and that Scotland Yard has said detectives need more time to "research which students were involved and which were not". He said social workers from Westminster's child protection department are also preparing resources to assist children and parents when victims are identified.
There was frustration among parents at the lack of information from the school. The children were called into a special assembly on Thursday morning, but a meeting for parents will not take place until next week, Woodhead said. In the meantime parents gathered together for support. They said the concern was focusing on groups of children who joined him on field trips to Nepal in 2013 and Venezuela in 2012, as well as other trips.
"Every teenage kid who went on those trips is asking, 'Was it me?'," said a mother of one teenage boy at the school. "Chances are that some of our kids have been victimised but we don't know anything."
She said the children felt "upset and betrayed" as Vahey was a highly popular and respected teacher, and only three weeks ago they were mourning his death.
"He was an incredibly loved teacher and so the kids are feeling conflicted," she said. "They were mourning him a few weeks ago. It is horrific; there couldn't be anything worse than what the kids are going through."
They are "scared and distraught, can't believe it's true, don't want it to be true."
"I couldn't sleep last night," said one woman who said her son was in Vahey's class and went on one field trip with him. "I am shocked, very shocked. My boy is 13 now and his class teacher was Vahey. Even if they find my son in the photos, I would rather not know and just forget about it. I tried to probe my son about it yesterday. When you have [sleeping] drugs you have difficulty waking up and he replied that he woke up normally. He was one of four boys sleeping in one room and I just hope that would have made it more difficult for [Vahey]. My son is very worried. He asked me 'did I get molested?'."
The school carried out checks dating back 17 years on Vahey, who had taught in international schools in eight countries. But they did not pick up on a 1969 conviction for child molestation in California.
Woodhead said on Thursday that Vahey's CV showed he had been registered as a teacher in the state of New Jersey in 1986 and it was reasonable to assume that wouldn't have been the case if he had been convicted of child molestation.
"The system in America broke down," Woodhead said.
Asked if he was angry about that, the 13-year old's father, an executive on secondment from abroad, said "yes and no".
"I don't blame them, it happens," he said. "How they are going to react now is more crucial."
Another father who was very agitated as he entered the school buildings on Great Portland Street in central London said the situation was "massively worrying". Asked how he felt about the news he said: "I am a parent, how would you think I would react?"
He added: "The kids have a real problem right now."
On Wednesday, Scotland Yard said child abuse specialists are helping assess the FBI's intelligence about "potential alleged offences against children in London". The FBI said it was trying to identify the dozens of children pictured in the photos.
One parent at the school said families received letters about the crisis from the school on Wednesday and he said the situation raised important questions about the screening of teachers who work in several different countries. Vahey had jobs in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Madrid, Athens, Venezuela, Iran and Lebanon.
"If there isn't an international network then there's a failure in the ability of schools to protect their children," he said. "There should be a standard check for international schools. I would expect now a thorough investigation by the school and an audit to be done of the current staff and they give us an assurance going forward that the same thing won't happen again. There is nothing more important that the safety of our children."
The alert was raised by the FBI in Houston on Tuesday. Patrick Fransen, an FBI special agent, said of Vahey: "He had access to children because of his position of trust. The manner in which he committed these acts – while the boys were unconscious – may have inhibited them from knowing what happened, making it impossible for them to come forward at the time of the molestation."
