A long-awaited independent report on sexual abuse at St. George’s School in Middletown was released on Thursday by Boston lawyer Martin Murphy. Murphy, a partner in the law firm Foley Hoag, was retained in January to investigate allegations of abuse going back decades at the elite boarding school.
Murphy’s report says the school provided a Jekyll and Hyde experience for students in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Many students, says the report, got the expected first-rate education along with lessons learned from influential mentors and lifelong friends. For others, however, St. George’s became a “private hell.”
The report increases the number of known abuse cases to over 60 during the 1970s and 1980s. Athletic trainer Al Gibbs stands out as the worst offender in the report, responsible for abusing at least 31 female students. Attorney Eric MacLeish, himself a St. George’s alumnus, represented dozens of victims at the school. He says, “This is a truly independent report, and it’s shocking and horrifying on so many levels. To think that one out of five girls, and as the investigator notes that’s an understatement, between 1972 and 1979, were molested by one perpetrator, Al Gibbs, is just absolutely horrifying.”
Gibbs was fired in 1980. Nine other school employees were responsible for abusing at least 20 other students, with at least 10 students suffering abuse by their peers. MacLeish calls the report the most comprehensive record yet of sexual abuse at an American boarding school. He credits the current St. George’s administration with changing its culture, and having the courage to confront the past.
Rhode Island state police previously conducted their own investigation and said they couldn’t bring charges for a variety of reasons, including the statute of limitations and changes in the laws since the abuse occurred.
