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How Catholic Eton Ruined My Life - Ampleforth Was PEDOs Cafeteria

Edinburgh University Had Outsized Role in Creating RACIST Scientific Theories

Britains Most Prestigious University Benefited From Transatlantic Slavery -Was Haven For White Supremacist Theories


MailOnline 27 JUL 2025










The university raised the equivalent of at least ?30MIL from former students and donors who had links to the enslavement of African peoples, the plantation economy and exploitative wealth gathering throughout the British empire, according to the findings of an official investigation


The inquiry found that Edinburgh became a haven for professors who developed theories of white supremacism in the 18th and 19th centuries, and who played a pivotal role in the creation of discredited racial pseudo sciences that placed Africans at the bottom of a racial hierarchy.

It reveals the ancient university which was established in the 16th century still had bequests worth ?9.4MIL that came directly from donors linked to enslavement, colonial conquests and those pseudo sciences, and which funded lectures, medals and fellowships that continue today.





Sir Peter Mathieson, the universitys principal, who commissioned the investigation, said its findings were hard to read but that Edinburgh could not have a selective memory about its history and achievements




How ?Catholic Eton? Ruined My Life - Ampleforth Was a PEDOS Cafeteria




One of the victims of monk Father James speaks out about the sexual abuse he suffered at Britains 'Catholic Eton'





Michael James Callaghan was a housemaster of St Wilfrids, in charge of caring for the 60 or so boys who lived there


I enjoyed school, Ive always had a curious mind. As long as I had teachers who explained things right, I loved learning, says Thomas. Ive never had the kind of mind which will just accept things and move on. I need to know why.

That keeps me awake at night -why me Why did it happen Why was it allowed to happen?


Thomas was 13 when he arrived at Ampleforth College in the mid 1990s. Devout Catholics, Thomas parents were drawn to the elite public school in large part because of the emphasis it placed on the religious education of its students, all centred on the community of Benedictine monks at Ampleforth Abbey who lived and worked within the school. It was all very much a one package monastic education and they valued that, recalls Thomas.

The institution, founded in 1802, is one of Britains foremost public schools, with a storied list of alumni including Rupert Everett, James Norton, James O'Brien, Lord Fellowes, Lord Bamford, Sir Antony Gormley and Hamish Badenoch, the husband of the Conservative leader

Despite that, Thomas admits he was terrified as his parents dropped him off at Ampleforths lush, green campus, nestled in a valley on the edge of the North York Moors, cut off from the rest of the world when the mist rises around it in the colder months.

I think most people will know that being 13 or 14 is a difficult age, but when you're thrown in with a dormitory of 12 strangers and you're told, These are the people you're living with for the next five years, its even harder, Thomas explains. If they are not a brilliant fit, thats when its easy to start falling through the cracks.

Thomas got by and made a few friends at Ampleforth. But it wasnt until his second academic year, when he was 14, that he met the person whose malign shadow still lingers over him to this day.

I had a friend in a different house, St Wilfrids, and, of course, none of us had mobiles then, so when I wanted to see him, Id have to turn up on spec, says Thomas. If he was around, great. If not, Id move on to see if I could find someone else.


Meeting a MONSTER

At Ampleforth, pupils were taught to obey strict forms of courtesy, which meant that whenever a boy wanted to visit another house, he must first receive permission from that housemaster. That was how Thomas first met Father James.

Callaghan, known as Father James, was a monk of the English Benedictine Congregation who lived at Ampleforth Abbey




Michael James Callaghan, known to his charges as Father James, was a monk of the English Benedictine Congregation who lived at Ampleforth Abbey, which lies at the heart of the college.




He?d been a teacher before joining the monastery and then had segued back into his former career as a language tutor at Ampleforth College for a few years before being appointed as housemaster of St Wilfrid?s, in charge of caring for the 60 or so boys who lived there, the same year that Thomas enrolled at the school.

He was one of the younger monks although he was always given a ribbing for his snow white hair and we thought he was cool, recalls Thomas. He was affable, easy to talk to, Cambridge educated and full of interesting conversation. He wasnt a monk to the boys, he was our friend

A couple of times in the week, Id gone to call on my friend and hed not been there, so Father James said, Why dont you stay and have a drink with me It didn?t seem that odd. This was the type of thing that could happen at Ampleforth, explains Thomas.

They chatted for hours. For a boy whod struggled with bullying, 200 miles from home, the attention was flattering.

As I was leaving to go back to my house for evening prayers, he pulled me to one side and he said, I just want you to know what a special boy you are. When I walk into mass on Sunday, I'll be scratching my ear, and that'll be a sign Im thinking about you, says Thomas. When I saw him scratching his ear in mass on Sunday, I felt proud that I was special enough to be noticed by him

When Callaghan offered to take Thomas out on a Saturday trip to York, 22 miles away, he felt bound to say yes. I knew monks didnt have much money so this was special and I felt I couldnt refuse, Thomas explains.


Thats when the monk made Thomas an 'OFFER'......He told me, Look, I know you smoke when you think the teachers arent looking, and you could get in serious trouble for that, so I'll make you a deal, if you promise here that no one will ever hear about this and you will never smoke with anyone else, I'll sort out a supply of cigarettes for you


Suddenly, what had been a social connection was transmuted into a physical pull, the nicotine drawing him into Callaghans clutches on a daily basis. The boys own housemaster made a note in his termly school report about how much time Thomas was spending with Father James.




THE HORROR STARTED

Callaghan then went under the radar, arranging to meet Thomas in different places around the school, disused offices, empty classrooms, and the schools guest rooms.




Grooming The Whole Family

From there on, if he was at school, Thomas never got to see his mother on his own. When his parents visited once or twice every term, weekend trips were planned around the monks schedule, dinners were arranged to include him, and soon he began visiting the family in the school holidays too.

Sometimes, Callaghan would turn his head as Thomas went to kiss his cheek and hd end up kissing him on the mouth. Hugs would go on for longer and longer. The monk?s hands would wander. Once, in full view of other parents, Callaghan squeezed Thomas bottom in the schools main hall after a church service.

Id call it hiding in plain sight, but I think he knew he didnt have to hide, says Thomas.


Attraction to Under Age Boys

That Callaghan was a paedophile can be in no doubt. In the summer of 2025, Michael James Callaghan was found guilty of 12 charges of indecent assault against Thomas, and a further charge against another boy in 2013.

David Lamb KC, defending, said Callaghan had sought medical help to address his attraction to boys even before he joined Ampleforth.

A letter from a doctor read When I first saw him, he was rushing after adolescent boys he saw in the street.

Jurors were told that Callaghan had gone to see the same doctor again in 1993, confessing that he had been having more difficulty in controlling the sexual side of his life

Thomas was appalled by the revelation that the school should have known whom it had on its hands. Ampleforth had that letter from a psychosexual specialist who had assessed Father James, says Thomas.

To make a monster like that a housemaster in charge of teenage boys is, at the very, very, very best, outright stupidity and mismanagement.

Ampleforth were desperate to keep their status as a monastic school so they overlooked a lot of issues, says Thomas.

They put a man they knew was a paedophile in charge of a boarding house of boys and stood back and watched for four years as he paraded me around.

It made me feel dreadful, If it had happened six months later, once the really heavy sexual abuse started, it might well have made me see the situation for what it was... The grooming wasnt merely sexual, either. Callaghan hoped to fashion Thomas into a mirror image of himself.

He brought priests vestments, monks habits, even a mitre, and would encourage Thomas to dress up in them, telling him how much he thought the boy would make a great bishop, abbot, or even pope

The first time it happened, I left the room feeling really quite sick. I walked back to my boarding house and told myself, Thats something that wont happen again. But it did. Again and again and again.

Weeks before he was due to take his GCSEs, Thomas began to feel the water boiling around him. Calling his parents, he begged them to let him leave Ampleforth and enrol as a day pupil elsewhere.

Within 24 hours, his parents had arrived at the school for a meeting with Thomas housemaster, Father James and a lay teacher named Derek Lloyd..Thomas desire to leave the school was dismissed. I was essentially told not to be so silly and Father James assured my parents that hed keep a close eye to make sure I was all right


Sixth Form at Ampleforth HORRIFIC & Severe

But after he returned to Ampleforth for his A levels, the abuse became increasingly severe. They would meet in the Tramps? Room, a room where a person experiencing homelessness could stay if they were in need.

It stank of stale alcohol, stale urine, and stale whatever else. There was just one bed and thats when it became much easier for him to start grabbing at me, pulling me on to him. Once, he made me bite his penis, over his clothes


The Investigations Into Ampleforth

Conclusions drawn by the 2018 report filed by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which launched an investigation into Ampleforth College and Downside School another public school built around an abbey of the English Benedictine Congregation

The report found there were 10 men at Ampleforth and Downside, mostly monks, who were convicted of, or cautioned for, offences involving sexual activity towards children or pornography and cited a litany of abuses which had taken place at the schools, which they said had prioritised the monks and their own reputations over the protection of children

In the years since Thomas attended, dozens of revelations about Ampleforths staff have come to light.

In 1996, Father Bernard Green was found guilty on charges of indecently assaulting a 13 year old pupil as he slept in the dormitory. Green received two years probation at Ryedale magistrates court for the incident and was removed from his teaching post.

Between 2004 and 2006, North Yorkshire Police investigated allegations of child sexual abuse at Ampleforth dating back to the 1960s. It led to the convictions of Father Piers Grant Ferris on 20 counts of indecent assault with boys in his care, and of Father Gregory Carroll for offences against 10 pupils between 1979 and 1987.

The incidents which were brought to trial could represent only the very tip of the iceberg, thinks Thomas, with many more victims too proud, too ashamed or too afraid to speak out. He coped with the situation by drinking heavily. A bottle of vodka, two bottles of vodka, three bottles of vodka every week. It was the only way he could shut out the abuse that had become part and parcel of his everyday life.

Things came to a head just before Thomas began his A levels. A friend found him counting out pills on his bed.

I eventually managed to get to Aberdeen University, where I graduated with a half decent degree the dead cat bounce, I suppose, says Thomas.

It feels like we were in a paedophiles cafeteria. The monks picked us off ONE by ONE, fumes Thomas.

It was like bingo: a paedophiles? playbook. Every single thing that had happened to me was right there on TV. That was the first time I was able to see it for what it was.


The very next morning, Thomas went to his local police station, which passed his statement to North Yorkshire Police. Within a week, a detective had come to visit him at home.

Six weeks before the case went to trial, another complainant came forward. This young man had been physically assaulted by Callaghan in 2013 when he was a 17 year old student at Ampleforth. Having described the assault as weird and quite frightening, the young man involved had suffered nightmares ever since.

Though the new evidence delayed the trial by six months, in May 2025, Callaghan was found guilty of 13 counts of indecent assault.... Sentencing the monk to seven years in prison, Judge Richard Clews described Callaghan as cynical and manipulative in the extreme

As he stood on the platform, awaiting the train home after having seen the sentencing, Thomas felt for the first time in his life that he was free. It was then that a man tapped him on the shoulder.

Thank you so much for what you've done, the stranger told him. I was a pupil of Father James and watched the trial from the public gallery.

You've helped so many more people than you can possibly realise....