Four teachers. One Catholic school. Nearly two decades of abuse.
©️ By Sophie Lewis | The Grooming Files
St Anne’s Catholic School and Sixth Form College in Southampton has become the focus of Hampshire Police Operation Stonecrop — an investigation into multiple allegations of sexual abuse by staff in positions of trust, spanning cases from 2006 to 2022.
This is not one rogue adult who slipped through the cracks.
This is a pattern, repeated across years, across different staff members, across multiple victims that forces the question institutions work hardest to avoid:
How many people saw the warning signs, and chose to do nothing?
The Timeline Nobody Connected
2006: Allegations involving a future headteacher
In December 2024, Hampshire Police announced charges against James Edwin Rouse, former headteacher of St Anne’s, relating to alleged child sexual abuse from 2006.
The charge: sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust.
This is one of the clearest legal definitions of institutional abuse.. adult power, child vulnerability, and the access the institution provided.
A trial concluded with a hung jury. No verdict was reached.
2014–2019: Convicted — abuse on school premises
In October 2025, Leo Norman, former English and Media teacher, was jailed for 14 months after pleading guilty to three counts of sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust.
The offending included sexual touching on school premises. In his office.
Police reports state Norman paid his victims “extra attention,” complimented them, and took an interest in their personal lives to build trust before touching them sexually and inappropriately.
Victims told the court they were left feeling confused and uncomfortable. One said she was made to feel like it was her fault he was attracted to her.
This didn’t happen in some hidden “other world.” It happened inside the place children are told is safe during the routines of school life.
2021–2022: Recent allegations, same institution
In April 2025, Hampshire Police announced that Paul Davis, a former teacher, was charged with three counts of sexual activity with a girl under 16, alleged to have taken place in 2021 and 2022.
That timeline matters because it kills the comfortable myth that this is only “historic” abuse.
It shows continuity.
December 2025: Another conviction
On 3 December 2025, the Crown Prosecution Service announced the conviction of Edward Waller, a former teacher, for sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust, following a trial at Portsmouth Crown Court.
The court heard Waller groomed a vulnerable 16-17 year old student, sent increasingly sexual messages, and invited her to his home where he had sex with her. He was 46 at the time.
Again: position of trust. Again: an adult placed near children precisely because they were meant to protect them.
The Question Nobody Is Forcing the Institution to Answer
When multiple staff members are investigated, charged, or convicted across different time periods, the issue is no longer just “who did it.”
It becomes:
- Who noticed grooming patterns and dismissed them as “favouritism”?
- Who heard rumours and treated them as schoolyard drama?
- Who received disclosures and decided it was “too complicated”?
- Who prioritised reputation management over safeguarding escalation?
Because safeguarding failure rarely looks like a villain twirling a moustache.
Most of the time, it looks like ordinary professionals choosing the path of least resistance, until the harm becomes undeniable.
Why This Matters Nationally — Right Now
The UK government just announced the creation of a Child Protection Authority, designed to fix “persistent systemic failures” in safeguarding.
The stated problems: fragmented communication, agencies working in silos, failure to learn from serious case reviews.
But cases like St Anne’s expose something deeper.
Institutions can appear functional even high-performing in inspections, while serious abuse occurs within their walls.
And when the pattern repeats across years, it’s no longer credible to treat each case as isolated.
St Anne’s looked functional. Inside, multiple teachers were exploiting children for nearly two decades.
What This Represents
One school.
Four staff members accused or convicted.
A police operation.
Cases spanning 2006 to 2022.
Whether the wider institutional response was negligence, denial, fear, or reputation-protection, the outcome is the same: children were placed near adults who exploited the access the institution provided.
The Questions That Need Answers
If this investigation is to mean anything beyond documentation, these questions must be asked:
- What safeguarding reports, audits, or external reviews exist connected to Operation Stonecrop?
- What did the school report to the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO), and when?
- How were staff concerns handled internally — whistleblowing policy, HR escalation, safeguarding thresholds?
- Were there patterns in victim profiles that should have triggered earlier intervention?
- What did the diocese or academy trust know, and what action did they take?
These aren’t rhetorical questions.
They’re the questions the institution is hoping nobody asks consistently enough to demand answers.
I’m asking.
Sophie Lewis | NUJ-Accredited Investigative Journalist
The Grooming Files
This is an ongoing investigation. If you have information related to safeguarding failures at St Anne’s Catholic School, contact: sophie.editorial@outlook.com
The Grooming Files 
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