A music teacher trained at London’s prestigious Royal College of Music and jailed for raping and abusing students was a close friend of a man accused of multiple sex offenses who also studied there. Evil teacher Peter Antonelli, from Gullane, East Lothian, was close friends with Christopher Ling, a former violin teacher accused of molesting girls at Chetham’s School of Music.
Antonelli, 66, was jailed for eight years in December 2021 for raping and sexually abusing former students with abuse occurring between 1980 and 2005. His friend Ling, who lived in the United States, shot himself shot in the head in 2015 minutes before the police. arrived at his home to extradite him to the UK to face 77 charges of sex offenses against pupils at Chetham’s School of Music.
The pair, who studied music at Kensington, allegedly used the same twisted techniques to abuse girls. They both groomed their victims, forcing them to wear lingerie and perform sex acts as they took nude photos and manipulated them into not disclosing the abuse, reports the Daily Record.
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One of Antonelli’s six victims has revealed she met Ling when he visited Scotland and he made a series of lewd comments to her and another pupil. Grace – alias – testified against piano teacher Antonelli last year and said Ling called her friend’s students “rides from the future”.
Activist Dr Ian Pace, a pianist who has worked to expose historic abuse between students and teachers at specialist music schools, described the perverts’ links as “very significant”. He said: “It would be interesting to compare their modus operandi. How exactly they used their techniques to manipulate, cajole and then abuse the students in their charge. Ling seems to have had his kind of abuse down to a type of art form, as he would have seen.
BBC Scotland’s Disclosure: Abused By My Teacher program – which airs on BBC1 at 10.40pm on Monday April 11 – tells the stories of the survivors who brought Antonelli to justice. It reveals the current gaps in the regulation of children’s performing arts in Scotland.
Grace was one of the first victims of the teacher and musical director. She was only 10 years old when he started working in her primary school. Antonelli – who was awarded an MBE in 2004 for her services to music education – abused her at a time when she was struggling at home and her ordeal began the day of her grandmother’s funeral when she was only 14 and continued for the next five years. years.
Grace was 15 and with another 13-year-old victim when she met Ling. She said: “Ling said to Antonelli, ‘Look at these girls, these are the rides of the future. “”Grace had seen many photos of other girls in Antonelli’s apartment and believes the photos were passed on to other people.
Another victim, Emma, said she was sexually abused by Antonelli from the late 90s until 2005 and hid the secret for two decades. She had been taught by him in school and was also part of a musical theater group he led called Musical Youth. The women reveal why they decided to go to the police and why they are determined to pursue the case after so many years.
Emma said: “I wanted justice for myself, I wanted justice for other women and I want him to never be able to do this to other children again, and he can’t.” Grace said: “I wanted a quiet life. But in fact, you can only run away for so long and then you have to turn around and face him. So that’s what I had to do.
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