Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Arts myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.\u201cShe\u2019s got 900 kids there and she selects me. I thought I was something special.\u201d These are the words of Gareth, who is recalling an alleged sexual relationship with a female science teacher at his London school in the late 1980s. When it started, she was 27 and Gareth \u2014 not his real name \u2014 was 14. He claims she would take him back to her house after school where they had sex. At the time, he couldn\u2019t believe his luck.\u00a0In Lucky Boy, an affecting and discomforting four-part podcast from Tortoise Media, reporter Chloe Hadjimatheou tells of the relationship that would go on to derail Gareth\u2019s life. Now in his fifties, he suffers from mental health problems and is unable to work. From the vantage point of adulthood, he sees himself not as lucky but as a victim of manipulation and sexual abuse. (The teacher in question, who declined to be interviewed, has denied all wrongdoing.)The are two objectives in this series. One is to establish the veracity of Gareth\u2019s claims \u2014 a tough call, given how much time has passed. Combing through school records and social media, Hadjimatheou sets about tracking down former teachers and pupils, but not everyone wants to talk. She speaks to Gareth\u2019s mother who tells of her failed attempts to get the school to investigate. It was Gareth\u2019s older brother who sounded the alarm (sworn to secrecy, Gareth denied what was happening until much later). His sister says the experience has \u201cfossilised him, emotionally\u201d.Lucky Boy also examines our shifting understanding of issues around consent and abuse. In the 1980s, terms such as grooming and coercive control weren\u2019t widely understood, and cases of sexual misconduct within institutions were often swept under the carpet. Even now, after the myriad cases of sexual abuse that have come to light as a result of #MeToo, little is heard from male victims of female abusers.\u00a0Hadjimatheou navigates all this with thoughtfulness and empathy. That said, her getting a group of 14-year-old boys together to talk about girls and shaving achieves little other than to make the listener uncomfortable (the idea is that it will help us understand how immature they are).\u00a0By far the most compelling element of Lucky Boy is Gareth himself, whose testimony is blunt, shocking and sad. In 2023, following a tribunal by the Teaching Regulation Agency, Gareth\u2019s former teacher was found \u201cguilty of unacceptable professional conduct\u201d and prohibited from teaching. In her investigation, Hadjimatheou unearths two other pupils who also claim they had sexual encounters with the same teacher. Gareth\u2019s response to this underlines the emotional complexity of the case. He is relieved that their allegations seem to back up elements of his story, but he also feels betrayed. \u201cIt\u2019s like finding your first girlfriend is kissing all the boys,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t want to hear that.\u201dtortoisemedia.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Arts myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.\u201cShe\u2019s got 900 kids there and she selects me. I thought I was something special.\u201d These are the words of Gareth, who is recalling an alleged sexual<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":235046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-235045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235047,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235045\/revisions\/235047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}