Earl Spencer: My harrowing sexual assaults at the hands of school matron

THE younger brother of Princess Diana has given harrowing details of the alleged brutal beatings and sexual assaults he suffered at boarding school.

- Chris Riches

Speaking about the abuse for the first time in his new memoirs, Earl Spencer, 59, says he was targeted by an assistant matron at Maidwell Hall in Northants when he was 11.

The sexual assaults in the 1970s left him with such trauma that he self-harmed over the notion she may leave the school and he suffered lifelong "demons".

As a result of the experience, Earl Spencer said he lost his virginity to an Italian prostitute at the age of 12.

He added: "It's been an absolutely hellish experience at times, this chronicling of casual cruelty, sexual assault and other perversions from long ago.

"This is a look back at how things too often were, 50 years ago, in the English private educational system." In the memoirs he said of the matron: "There seemed to be an unofficial hierarchy among her prey. She chose one boy each term to share her bed and would use him for intercourse.