A music teacher and clarinet choir founder was today struck off after a disciplinary body found he’d engaged in unlawful sexual activity with a girl of 15.
A fitness to practise committee of the Education Workforce Council ruled Richard Edwards, now 70, had drunk alcohol with the girl before asking her if she was a virgin.
The committee found that he then allegedly kissed the victim before she touched him in an intimate area, touched her breasts, was naked, and declared his love for the victim.
The incident was alleged to have happened during a North Wales Clarinet Choir (NWCC) trip in 1997, during which Edwards was the choir lead.
Richard Edwards arrives at a teacher misconduct hearing at the Ramada Plaza Hotel, Wrexham. Richards has been struck off after a disciplinary body found he’d engaged in unlawful sexual activity with a girl of 15
During a music trip to London he also allegedly held the girl, named ‘Person B’, by the hand.
The EWC also explored an allegation that he slow danced with the girl on a ferry during a music trip the previous year.
A prohibition order was imposed.
Panel chairman Mark Brown said: ‘This is a proportionate and appropriate sanction and one necessary to protect learners.’
Mr Edwards’s ‘pattern of misconduct’ had ‘a very serious impact’ and was ‘fundamentally incompatible’ with him remaining on the teaching register, Mr Brown added.
The EWC also heard how during a trip abroad Mr Edwards allegedly attempted to have sex with a woman identified as ‘Person A’ on a mattress in an empty classroom. According to the panel, this was consensual and the woman was aged 19.
The panel found that during lessons or music groups Mr Edwards allegedly used ‘innuendo’ including referring to ‘tonguing’, ‘opening the throat’, ‘take it from bar 69’, ‘girls who like big instruments’, ‘girls having a problem getting their mouth around such a big mouthpiece’, and ‘girls having a large instrument between their legs.’
Panel chairman Mr Brown said ‘Person B’ had been ‘deeply affected’ by the sexual activity and it was clearly unacceptable professional conduct.
Presenting officer Cadi Dewi said at the Wrexham hearing : ‘Clearly what you have found amounts to a serious and deliberate course of conduct by Mr Edwards which had life-long consequences particularly for person B.’
The panel had found unlawful sexual activity with a child under 16 in the nature of a student-teacher relationship.
Encouraging and allowing drinking and the conduct involving Person A and innuendo the panel might consider ‘fundamentally incompatible’ with remaining on the register. The panel had found Mr Edwards ‘untruthful in the account he’s given.’
She said to the panel : ‘Mr Edwards was a prominent member of the music education community and you may feel in an even greater position of trust. Mr Edwards doesn’t intend to practise any further.’
He told the panel : ‘In the 1990s I hadn’t the benefit of any training as regarding child protection.’ He’d undertaken a teaching course but in further education.
He said current training ‘would have helped enormously.’
The panel found that during lessons or music groups Mr Edwards (pictured) allegedly used ‘innuendo’ including referring to ‘tonguing’, ‘opening the throat’, ‘take it from bar 69’, ‘girls who like big instruments’, ‘girls having a problem getting their mouth around such a big mouthpiece’, and ‘girls having a large instrument between their legs’
Mr Edwards added : ‘I have had a very successful career. It doesn’t feel like it sitting here now.’
The panel had heard Mr Edwards conducted a relationship with Person A – a Bangor university student – who received private clarinet tuition.
She said she now dealt with cases of abuse by clergy. She now realised how ‘abusive’ his behaviour had been towards her and, in particular, towards the other witness at the hearing, ‘Person B’.
Giving evidence from behind a screen, the witness said she went to police after Mr Edwards told her he was in the Church in Wales selection process for the ministry.
Person A said they’d started a sexual relationship when she was 19 and he was almost 28 years older. She recalled a North Wales visit in the 1990s by a Danish clarinet choir when there had been late nights and drinking games.
When she was at university, she said, he would take her out at night and encourage her to drink. ‘I was quite inexperienced and naïve,’ the woman said.
During the trip abroad there had again been partying and drinking and ‘A’ said she’d played ‘footsie’ with the flirty teacher.
In Frankfurt, in 2000, they’d had sex in a youth hostel, the woman alleged. She ended their affair the following year. ‘I have been single the vast majority of my adult life. I do wonder whether things would have been different had I never met Richard Edwards,’ she declared. ‘I don’t want any other young woman to go through what I suffered because of Richard Edwards.’
Presenting officer Miss Dewi said he’d taken ‘Person A’ to dinner, invited her out when his wife and family were away, and eventually a sexual relationship began.
The allegations dated back to between 1996 and 2001. Miss Dewi said Mr Edwards was a peripatetic music teacher for the Gwynedd and Anglesey schools music service and prominent in the national and local music scene. He was leader of North Wales Clarinet Choir (NWCC) with expertise involving wind instruments.
He provided private clarinet lessons and two pupils were ‘A’ and ‘B’.
Miss Dewi alleged at the hearing that Mr Edwards had been ‘grooming’ woman ‘A’ for a relationship which became sexual when she was 19.
Following ‘safeguarding’ training, ‘Person A’ had realised Mr Edwards’s behaviour towards her was inappropriate and in July 2017 she made a complaint to Staffordshire police.
Counsel said Mr Edwards accepted the affair was unacceptable by current standards but not those in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
‘Person B’ became involved with him between the ages of 13 and 16 and went abroad with the NWCC.
Miss Dewi said in 1999 ‘Person B’ had disclosed some of the alleged behaviour to her parents, and police were involved, but no charges brought.
Mr Edwards has disputed the allegations except those of drinking alcohol with students. ‘It was in the company of a wider group including other adults,’ he declared.