Ex-teacher at United World College accused of molesting colleague’s wife, claimed he’s gay when confronted

SINGAPORE — A former teacher from United World College of South East Asia (UWCSEA) is on trial, after being accused of molesting his colleague's wife at one of the international school’s social events held in the Singapore Cricket Club.

Benjamin James Henry, a 35-year-old Briton, apparently retorted by saying, “Get real, I am gay!”, when his accuser confronted him right after the alleged incident at about midnight on June 17, 2017.

The accuser, a woman in her 50s who works in the healthcare sector, testified at the opening of the trial on Thursday (May 2) that she was leaving the party with her British husband when she felt a hand running down her back to her buttock.

The contact lasted four to six seconds, said the woman who cannot be named to protect her identity. She then grabbed the hand and turned to the accused, whom she had never met.

Recalling the confrontation, she said: “I asked, 'Why are you touching me? Why have you got your hand on my buttock?'

“And then it was, like, suddenly he woke up from a trance. He said, ‘Get real, I am gay!’. He then flicked my hand from his wrist aggressively and stomped off.”

She said that she felt violated and “stripped” of her dignity.

The woman told her husband what had happened, and then another teacher from the school — an associate of Henry’s named Joe McWilliams — approached the couple and insisted that it was all a misunderstanding.

She said Mr McWilliams told her that Henry had been drinking for the last seven hours and “probably does not even remember” he had touched her.

A close friend of the woman’s also came by, commenting that she knew who Henry was and that he “is a really lovely lad”. The friend offered to speak to Henry on her behalf and ask for an apology.

However, the accuser said that after speaking to Henry, the friend “started doubting” her, asking her if it could be a case of “mistaken identity”.

The woman told the court that Mr McWilliams continued to “badger” her and her husband, sobbing and accusing her of “ruining” the night and “devastating” his group of friends.

There were also people staring and pointing fingers at her, including a girl who showed her the middle finger, she said.

SCHOOL DID NOT TAKE ACTION

The accuser did not make a police report until six months later because “friends had forsaken us, and (my husband) got no support” from the school’s management, she said.

“The compounding accusation that I am a liar kept coming, and now it is coming from the school leadership.”

The woman told the court that after the incident, her husband had met Mr Chris Edwards, the head of college, to discuss the reluctance of Ms Sue Bradshaw, the former deputy head of UWCSEA’s Dover campus, to formally record the said molestation incident.

But on the day that the meeting took place, the accuser said that she had a run-in with a female friend on campus. The friend later lodged a complaint against her with UWCSEA’s senior leadership team, saying the accuser had harassed her.

The accuser said she delayed making a report as Henry had emailed her husband, indicating that he was open to talk about the matter. They eventually got a school counsellor to mediate the session, but by the end of the 45-minute session, Henry still refused to admit that he had touched her, the accuser said.

She had asked him for a written apology.

“I just want him to admit the action… that it was not of a mistaken identity because everyone started saying that I accused a lovely lad,” she told the court.

The accuser said that she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after the incident, had to receive psychiatric treatment and was put on sleeping and anxiety pills.

The trial continues on Friday. If convicted of molestation, Henry could be jailed up to two years, fined and/or caned.