Victim of Neil Beckett says abuse has damaged every aspect of her life

A victim of school welfare officer Neil Beckett has said the impact of the abuse has damaged every aspect of her life.Anne, not her real name, was in sixth form at Lagan College in Belfast when she started having meetings in Beckett’s office. That is where he would carry out the abuse against her.Beckett, 44, from Kilmore Village in Downpatrick, Co Down, was found guilty of 17 offences against 11 victims – one count of sexual grooming and 16 of sexual assault.

The former Army cadet leader was acquitted of 12 other charges – one of rape, one of sexual communication with a child and 10 counts of sexual assault.He was handed a three-year sentence on Friday, 18 months of which will be spent in jail.Nine of his victims were students at Lagan College and two were teenage Army cadets. The crimes spanned a period of eight years, between 2015 and 2023.Now a university student, Anne says the inappropriate touching she experienced from Beckett at Lagan College has left her struggling to trust people and she now recoils at the prospect of human contact.“It’s pretty much affected every aspect of my life,” she said.“I don’t really trust people anymore. I need a warning to be touched, or hugged especially, because every single time that I am I’m turning my back thinking, is it him or is it someone else who’s going to hurt me?“It’s affected my mental health. It’s affected my schooling and the flow of my life. I am in university and every time I go into that school setting, it’s quite triggering, and I have a lot of issues because of it.”Anne said she does not think the sentence will bring closure.“I think it’ll be good to know that he can’t do this again, and that, you know, he’s not able to hurt anyone else, but it’s not justice, but it’s not closure, because this is going to affect me for the rest of my life, just because of how selfish and how disgusting of a man he was,” she said.Anne has accused Lagan College of handling complaints against Beckett “appallingly”, claiming the school passed up many opportunities to deal properly with the allegations and report him to police, rather than letting him continue to work with pupils.Her father John, also not his real name, said it has been difficult to see how the abuse has affected his daughter.“It’s very painful to watch your daughter suffer, and I suppose some of the things that come to mind are the fact that she feels guilty for not coming forward or realising sooner and more younger girls were then abused,” he said.“It’s all been very destabilising and to see the change in her behaviour and her mood and being withdrawn and her reactions to men and her reactions to being touched or hugged. That’s very painful to watch.”John said he sent Anne to school in the belief she would not be in danger.“It was quite shocking because you send your children to school and you trust that they’re in a safe place, and you trust that there are all these rules and regulations and checks and balances to make sure that there aren’t sexual predators in schools,” he added.PSNI Detective Inspector Noelle Gray, who worked on the case throughout, said Beckett was a predator who exploited a position of trust.“He manipulated those girls and he preyed on their vulnerabilities,” she said.“He didn’t get away with it, he was brought to justice.“He was not remorseful. He did prey on vulnerable girls.”In a statement, Francis Martin, chairman of the board of governors at Lagan College, said the school wished to acknowledge the “courage and bravery” of the young people who came forward to their parents and its child protection and safeguarding team.He added: “Throughout this process, Lagan College has fully engaged with the PSNI, the Children and Young People’s Service at the Education Authority, and the Public Prosecution Service, outlining how policies and procedures were followed in relation to this serious safeguarding matter.”

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