Philippa Wragg

My son’s agony

Philippa Wragg on the legal struggle that followed the sexual assault on one of her boys

A few weeks ago, Denis Cochrane, the choirmaster of a leading Roman Catholic school, was found guilty on seven counts of indecent assault against boys under 16. He was sought after as a music teacher (one of his pupils was Richard Branson’s son) and had a reputation as an organist. Cochrane was also something of a world expert on the Titanic, giving lectures and exhibiting his huge collection of artefacts from the wreck. Denis Cochrane taught my son and assaulted him on numerous occasions. Over the last 19 months I have discovered that, however strong the evidence, it is nearly impossible to make an accusation of molesting children stick against such an influential and admired man.

One evening, when my husband was away on a business trip, two police officers rang our front-door bell. Surprised and worried, I invited them inside, where they said that they wanted to talk about my 14-year-old son, Andrew. That morning they had used a search warrant to raid Cochrane’s home where they had found many photographs and a pair of my son’s name-taped school trousers. I was asked to identify Andrew from one of the photographs and was told that Cochrane was being interviewed at a nearby police station. Andrew and his brother were keen to know what was going on, so I introduced them to the police who assured them that they had done nothing wrong but emphasised that Andrew should feel free to talk.

Andrew was shaking violently. As the police left, they gave me a telephone contact number for the investigating Child Protection Team and told me that one of the officers would be in after 8 a.m. the next morning.

Once the police had gone, I asked my sons if there was anything that I should know. I will never forget the five minutes that followed.

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