Princess Diana’s younger brother has revealed he was sexually abused at a British boarding school.
Speaking in a preview of an interview to air on the Today show on NBC on Monday Earl Charles Spencer described how “we were preyed to very bad people’s worst instincts”.
The historian, 59, added: “We were locked away. We were like prisoners.”
Earl Spencer appeared on the American TV show ahead of the release of his new memoir A Very Private School.
He went on to share that the first person he ever told about the abuse was “a therapist when I was about 42.”
Maidwell Hall, the school that Spencer attended, told Today in a statement they have notified the local authorities to investigate possible crimes against children.
They are also encouraging anyone with a past experience to come forward.
The Sun reports that Earl Spencer’s memoir also reveals he lost his virginity to a sex worker while on a family trip aged 12.
He reportedly adds that he was sexually abused when he was 11 at the hands of a young female assistant matron at the prep school during the 1970s.
In the US edition of the book, which has been obtained by The Sun, he writes: “This woman’s control over mesmerised boys was total, for we were starved of feminine warmth and desperate for her affection.”
Calling her a “master of emotional manipulation”, he goes on: “The effect of what she did to me was profound and immediate, awaking in me basic desires that had no place in one so young.”
He claims the abuse involved French kissing and touching. Other boys were also targeted, he said.
Earl Spencer said following the incident when he was on a trip to Italy with his mother and step-father- he used his pocket money to pay a sex worker £15 for sex.
He described how the experience left him feeling “hollow and cold” and he did not sleep with another woman until he was 17.
Earl Spencer described his years at the school as a time of “casual cruelty, sexual assault and other perversions”.
The Sun also reports Earl Spencer has also revealed his and his sister’s nanny would bang their heads together if they were naughty.
