Sex abuse rituals at NJ boarding school exposed — in cartoons by survivor

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https://nypost.com/2021/06/21/sex-abuse ... toons/amp/

Sex abuse rituals at NJ boarding school exposed — in cartoons by survivor



Glenn Head survived a child’s waking nightmare at the hands of a pervert – not to mention the self-destructive sex-and-substance abuse streak it spawned in his adulthood.

The veteran cartoonist is telling his tale for the first time in the new graphic memoir “Chartwell Manor.”

Head’s book recounts his two years at the NJ boarding school run by headmaster “Sir” Terence Michael Lynch — a serial sexual abuser who manipulated young boys into “cuddling sessions” after fondling and beating their nude bodies.

Head’s life was shattered at 13 when he scored subpar marks in the 7th grade. In fall 1971, his parents sent him packing to the fancy “British-style” prep school, Chartwell Manor, which was hyped as a haven of “healing and reform” for troubled kids. He started cartooning at 14 to cope with “entering a real-world horror comic — .


Head’s critically acclaimed memoir could help bring a measure of justice to his fellow victims.

“I always feel like, with an autobiography or memoir, you’re wasting your time if you’re not risking something. I sort of bet all my chips on it,” Head told The Post of sharing his darkest secrets. Faded photos from his “Chartwell Manor” era capture a serious kid in a smart school uniform, with curly blonde hair tamed into a side-part — and haunted blue eyes concealing revelations “it took a whole lifetime” to make.

Head’s “merciless self-examination” — as legendary cartoonist Robert “R.” Crumb declared in his “masterpiece!” review — almost dares mainstream comic fandom to disapprove. He doesn’t ask readers to like him as he struggles to stick a pitchfork in the adult demons born of his warped school days — he gambles on the truth instead.

“My bottom-line approach: You gotta know what I know,” said Head. What’s it like to experience sex abuse and what sexual behavior that may have grown out of that feels like. That’s the deal that’s made when someone picks up the book”

IT WAS GOTHIC — BUT IT WASN’T MAGICAL

Some readers might be momentarily disturbed by the cover art: It sparks a bizarro world sense memory of another legendary prep school: Harry Potter’s Hogwarts School of Magic and Wizardry.

“I was aware of the books — but I didn’t so much get into the Harry Potter thing,” — but it did share a certain “gothic” Hogwarts’ vibe — chandeliers, high ceilings, otherworldly architecture befitting an mansion and estate named after Winston Churchill’s country home — that he wanted to recapture.

I grew up in Madison … public schools were institutional settings and all the same no matter where you went,” . On the other end of the spectrum was “an ominous castle in the woods, this boarding school was gothic, haunting, atmospheric, to my 13-year-old eyes. Chartwell Manor, I always felt, was begging for the comic book treatment”.

Every great comic needs its evil villain. Head’s came in the form of sick “Sir” Lynch, a UK-born perv who was eventually charged in a 103-count sexual abuse indictment for robbing his young Chartwell charges of their innocence.

“Sir’ was a larger than life figure: clownish, exuberant, grandiose — almost a parody of a boarding school headmaster,” Head said. “He was also a pathological liar and a serial abuser of children. Too criminal for words.....


A DOCUMENTED TRAIL OF PERVERSION

Because of silence among students, many parents didn’t learn of Lynch’s sadistic abuse until after the disgraced school was shut down in 1984. Accusers testified about groped genitals under the guise of medical exams, creation and distribution of child pornography and “cuddling” after naked-buttock beatings, the latter an attempt to “comfort” his humiliated victims in a perverse ritual of emotional control, according to one student.

Lynch eventually pleaded guilty in 1989, and served seven years of a 14-year sentence for molesting at least a dozen boys at Chartwell Manor. After his release, he got back to work. Lynch was sentenced in 2007 to one year in jail for assaulting three men between 2004 and 2005 at a drug and alcohol rehab in Morristown, where he posed as a volunteer doctor doing hernia checks, genital exams and spankings. Those adult victims received a $780,000 settlement — Chartwell students have yet to receive civil compensation.




2011, he was charged with failing to notify police of a change of address. Lynch is believed to have died at 77.

Decades after Sir’s reign of terror and Head’s subsequent spiral into addictions depicted in his memoir, the artist-author is now married and a parent himself, to a 20-year-old daughter who hasn’t read the book — “but she knows she’s in it,” he told The Post.

CIVIL JUSTICE POSSIBLE AS DEADLINE LOOMS

Self-destruction is in his past now but Head admitted there are emotional scars.

“I’ve been in touch with some alumni — and a lot of people I knew who were kids then committed suicide or are dead from drug overdoses. Others [got into] criminal things. A lot of that grew right out of that school. A great many students went through what I went through. Alcohol, drugs and sexual behavior followed that went part and parcel with this. I’m very lucky to have been clean and sober for some time.”


Meanwhile, the timing of the release of “Chartwell Manor” could shine a light on an ongoing push to bring compensation to survivors who were too traumatized to testify in the past.



2019, NJ Governor Phil Murphy signed the Victims’ Rights Bill into law, extending the statute of limitations window for child sexual abuse survivors to bring civil suits against those who hurt them.

However, time is running out for Chartwell Manor victims to join those who’ve already filed claims against surviving Chartwell administrators accused of letting Lynch — and other accused faculty — cultivate a culture of abuse.

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@ doginventor

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@ mercuryballs2

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@ doginventor

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