Presumed Guilty: A teacher’s solitary battle to clear his name

On 18 December 2012, Simon Warr’s life was changed irrevocably.A respected boarding school teacher, described by his peers as ‘one of the outstanding schoolmasters of his generation’, Warr was arrested following an allegation of historical child abuse. The complainant was a former pupil at a school where Warr had taught over thirty years previously. Although horrified by the claim, Warr was confident that without conclusive evidence the case would be dropped immediately. Instead, he spent an agonising 672 days on bail, waiting first to be charged and then for the case to go to trial.It took a jury less than forty minutes to acquit Warr unanimously on all charges. But despite being exonerated by the court, the damage to his reputation was irreversible. And while he struggled to cope in the devastating aftermath of the false accusations levelled against him, his complainants walked away with impunity, under a permanent cloak of anonymity.Presumed Guilty is a harrowing true story that examines our flawed justice system and an impassioned plea for us to reconsider the way our police handle cases of alleged historical child abuse, to protect innocent people against further false claims.