Former England hooker Brian Moore revealed in a newspaper interview yesterday that he was sexually abused as a child by a teacher on an overnight field trip.
The abuse began when he was about nine or 10 years old and continued in school along with three other boys, Moore told the Daily Telegraph.
Now 47, the former Harlequins player said he never told his parents because his church-going abuser, who he did not name and has since died, was a friend of theirs — and because he felt ashamed.
“So difficult is the subject that, if you have been abused, you feel tainted by association with the awfulness of the crime,” Moore told the newspaper ahead of the publication of his new autobiography, Beware of the Dog.
Of his abuser, he said: “I felt cheated when I heard he had died. I wrote him a letter explaining the effects of what he did, but he died before I could send it.”
“What happened to me cannot have been an isolated incident. It had probably been going on for years,” he said.
Moore, who was capped 64 times for England, played in three World Cups and was part of the winning side in three Grand Slams, is now a commentator known for his brash style — an attitude he links back to his abuse.
“Anyone with similar issues will understand that it is possible to come across as bullish, argumentative, forceful, mouthy and yet be absolutely crippled emotionally. It’s a compensation mechanism,” he said.
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