‘Raped’ schoolgirl’s family hired ex top cop to ‘direct’ police
THE family of a girl who claims she was raped at a private school hired a former top policewoman who sought to tell officers how to investigate the case, a court heard.
Ex-Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers was brought in as a private investigator by lawyers advising the girl’s parents.
The girl’s mother yesterday admitted she had spoken to Miss Akers – who spent 36 years with the Metropolitan Police – up to a dozen times during the investigation into allegations of rape by a geography teacher.
She added that her daughter had not hugged her since the time of her alleged ordeal – saying the teenager had become ‘the saddest girl I’ve ever seen’.
Kato Harris, 37, is accused of raping the then 14-year- old – who cannot be named for legal reasons – three times over two months in 2013 at a leading London school.
William Clegg QC, defending, said that Miss Akers had been in an ‘extremely senior rank’ until she retired from the Met in 2012. He claimed she had held a ‘number of meetings with serving officers about the case’.
He also claimed that Miss Akers had asked for access to court papers, and said she ‘sought give directions’ to officers about ‘what they should do’.
The court also heard that she provided a list of material that she wanted to access.
Detective Constable Sarah Lloyd, the officer leading the investigation, said that she had met Miss Akers ‘briefly’.
When asked if it was ‘unique’ for a former DAC to be involved in this way she answered: ‘Yes.’ The family used exclusive lawyers Mishcon de Reya ahead of the case, jurors were told.
During the hearing at Isleworth Crown Court, the alleged victim’s mother described how her daughter had avoided physical contact since the alleged incidents – which are said to have happened in a classroom during the school lunch break.
Speaking of one of her daughter’s panic attacks in November 2013, a month after the first alleged incident, she said they had rushed to hospital in an ambulance. She said: ‘I put my arm round her and she jumped.
‘I will never forget that moment... It was shocking.’ She later added: ‘I never gave her another kiss. I haven’t given her a hug since.’
She made the comments after it emerged that the girl, now 17, travelled to America each week to visit a psychiatrist.
The rape allegations emerged when the teenager spoke to her housemistress after moving to a new school. She told police that she had started ‘freaking out’ – and after months of alluding to a traumatic event, wrote a note to her housemistress which read: ‘I was raped.’
The court heard that on his arrest, Harris said: ‘Pray it’s a date I can be accounted for.’
Harris, who suffers from anxiety for which he takes medication, told officers: ‘I can’t imagine doing anything so unspeakable.’ It also emerged that his girlfriend was pregnant when police arrived at his new workplace to arrest him.
The girl had initially refused to name her alleged abuser, but was said to have ‘ smirked’ when a police officer said Harris. Her mother previously told the court that when she first put Harris’ name to her daughter, she had replied: ‘Not him.’
Employees at the school, who worked alongside the teacher of 15 years, told the court that the corridors where the attacks are alleged to have taken place were patrolled over lunchtime, and that the classroom had a see-through door.
Harris, from Richmond, south west London, is charged with three counts of rape of a child under 16. He denies all charges. The trial continues.
‘Haven’t hugged her since’