THE TRUTH ABOUT BRIAN PEAD - PART SIX

8

On 4 March 2008, Brian Pead received the judgment of Mrs Anne Martin, who had presided over the farce that masqueraded as a genuine Employment Tribunal hearing.

Mrs Martin – a school Governor – found in favour of Lambeth Council.

What irked Brian Pead was that while Mrs Martin claimed that there were ‘child protection issues’ in the case, the Tribunal could understand why not a single pupil or parent had been interviewed! Furthermore, Mrs Martin claimed that the investigation by Cathy Twist had been ‘wide-ranging’ and ‘thorough’.

As is his nature, Brian appealed. On 26 March 2008, he sent a letter to the Employment Appeal Tribunal, Audit House, 58 Victoria Embankment, London, informing them of his wish to Appeal the judgment made in error by Mrs Anne Martin.

9

Brian’s work at Off Centre was going extremely well and he made friends easily, had a full client portfolio (all females) and his clients attended on a weekly basis and were fully engaged in the therapeutic process. Feedback he received from his clients was that they completely trusted him as their counsellor and felt that they were ‘making progress’ in their lives.

The management at Off Centre and Sub19 were pleased with his efforts and offered him four days a week instead of his usual three days. He gratefully accepted, since he enjoyed the work and he wanted the additional income since work was well underway on the refurbishment of his house.

From September 2007 until this point in his life (March 2008), he had continued to notice the displays in the front bedroom of 62 Days Lane, Sidcup.

Not only were Off Centre pleased with his work, but they suggested he might like to apply for the full-time post of Group Therapist which was becoming vacant due to the current post-holder securing a position elsewhere.

As a former teacher and manager of teams, Brian had long had a great interest in group dynamics. Through 2007 and 2008, he attended monthly Psychodrama workshops at the Lancaster Gate Hotel in London where he met and forged friendships with practitioners including Richard Oliver, Marcia Karp and Dr. Olivia Lousada.

Brian was a devotee of the work of Irvin Yalom, the American existentialist counsellor who has written a number of books on his work with his clients, something that Brian himself wanted to emulate.

Yalom, Professor of Psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine, has written a large number of books about his work with clients including Love’s Executioner and Every Day Gets a Little Closer.

However, perhaps his most important work was, in Brian’s opinion, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy.

An avid consumer of reading material, Brian had read almost all of Yalom’s work, as well as the work of other group therapists such as Wilfred Bion.

In March, Brian completed and passed the Advanced Diploma in Humanistic Integrative Counselling at CPPD and his Case Study on his client Jemima ran to some 29 pages and received a distinction, being regarded by the tutor as ‘worthy of publication’. As a trainee teacher in 1982, his lecturers had also considered much of his written work as ‘worthy of publication’. Writing is in his blood – since he won a trip to Whipsnade Zoo for winning a story writing competition at the age of 7.

It is important to note here that throughout March, Brian Pead had had no contact with the person claiming to be the 14-year-old. He made no attempt to contact ‘her’ and ‘she’ had not contacted him.

His attention had been focused on his final preparations for the Staff Training on Child Sexual Abuse and his job application for the post of Group Therapist.

On Friday 28 March 2008, he arrived at the Sub19 offices in Florfield Passage, Hackney.

The day was bathed in bright sunlight and the Sub19 team (except Liam Shannon) were in attendance and two members of the Off Centre team also attended – Maya Walker, his lover of 36 years of age, and Mark Elmer, who – due to a prior engagement – was unable to stay for the entire duration of the training.

As a former teacher and Head Teacher, giving presentations is something that Brian is relatively proficient at and something which he enjoys, particularly if the topic is something he relishes.

As the survivor of sexual abuse in the children’s home in Harpenden, he relished the opportunity to train his colleagues in the topic, particularly since the team had identified a perceived weakness in this area of its collective knowledge.

It is important to note here that Maya Walker’s attendance required her to do two separate, small and almost insignificant acts. Yet these acts were to have important ramifications for Brian in the coming months.

She had to enter her attendance at this Staff Training in the TOIL folder in the Off Centre general office. TOIL – or time off in lieu – meant that she was able to claw back the time she spent attending this meeting because it was outside of her normal working hours. Thus there was an official record of Maya Walker’s attendance at the Staff Training undertaken by Brian Pead at the Sub19 offices in Hackney on 28 March 2008. This official record is important for reasons which will be explained in later chapters. Maya Walker’s TOIL record shows that on 20 March 2008 she attended a Multi Agency Meeting for 3 hours, on the 28 March 2008 she attended “Training at Sub19” for 3 hours, and on 11 April 2008 she attended the Fairbridge Project for 3 hours.

This is an official record of her TOIL hours. It is incontrovertible evidence that she attended the Staff Training presented by Brian Pead on that day. Each new TOIL record was entered into the Log Book in pen (not pencil) and each new entry went on the line below the previous entry. This meant, of course, that staff members could not falsify entries or erase entries.

That small and almost insignificant entry in the TOIL log book is of crucial significance to this entire story.

The second small and almost insignificant action that Maya Walker took was to pre-record her attendance at the Staff Training in her work diary. The entry for Friday 28 March 2008 shows that she has drawn an arrow commencing at 10am and finishing at 1pm. She has added (in capital letters) the word ‘TRAINING’ and underneath that heading she has written ‘Child Sexual Abuse – Brian’.

Together with the TOIL log book, this is clear and unequivocal proof that (a) she attended the Staff Training and (b) that it was undertaken by Brian Pead.   

Feedback from the team was extremely complimentary. Colleagues felt that only had he managed to ‘teach them something’ about a topic which many people find uncomfortable even acknowledging, but that he had simultaneously ‘held’ the group by regularly checking with the group how they were feeling, whether they wanted more heat or more air, refreshments or comfort breaks.

All of his research into child sexual abuse was held on the Off Centre main server, in a sub-directory called ‘Brian.Pead’.

Overleaf is the page from Maya Walker’s log of the TOIL owed to her. It is irrefutable evidence that Brian taught Staff Training. She claimed 3 hours time off in lieu for attending the training session taken by Brian.