I was groomed by paedophile, says An Education author
THE story of how as a schoolgirl she was seduced by a much older man was turned into a hit film starring Carey Mulligan.
Now j ournalist Lynn Barber, whose memoir inspired An Education, has revealed that she believes she was groomed by a paedophile.
The writer and celebrity interviewer’s book tells the true story of a naïve 16-year- old seduced by an older man, who turns out to be married with children.
Miss Barber, 69, said she did not fully grasp how wrong her relationship with conman Alan Green was until she saw her story being turned into a film. ‘My whole appeal to him was that I was a schoolgirl and his to me was that he was a grown-up, and he relied on the fact that schoolgirls didn’t question what grown-ups did,’ she told The Sunday Times.
‘Technically, he was not a paedophile, because I was 16 when I met him but it was essentially a paedophile relationship.
‘I believe he was a paedophile and that he groomed my parents to deliver me to him. That is why I have never felt the slightest desire to forgive him.’
Miss Barber met the property developer, whom she has previously referred to as Simon Goldman, while waiting at a bus stop near her home in Twickenham, West London, in 1961. He stopped in a red sports car and offered her a lift. He claimed to be 27 but she believes he was in his late 30s.
In the hit British film, Miss Mulligan plays schoolgirl Jenny Mellor while Peter Sarsgaad takes the role of conman David Goldman.
Green, who later served a prison sentence for fraud, pursued Miss Barber and they began a two-year romance, eventually persuading her parents that they should marry.
She found out that Green was married just before starting a degree at Oxford University. Their affair ended and he moved to Israel. More than 30 years later, Green, who died last year, started to pester the mother-of-two by phoning her at home and work.