A parent whose daughter had unsupervised one-to-one sessions with Neil Foden has claimed that the existence of concerns by teachers about his conduct in 2019 showed he could have been stopped. Foden, the former head teacher of Ysgol Friars in Bangor, was later made a “super-head” of another school. During his trial, it emerged that these concerns had not been investigated by education authorities. Foden has been sentenced to 17 years in prison after being convicted on multiple counts of sexually grooming and abusing several teenage girls, including his former pupil.
Foden’s victims described a pattern of grooming and sexual abuse that included sexualized text messages and references to a fetish. When police searched Foden’s car, they found a pair of handcuffs with traces of his DNA and that of one of the girls he abused. All of Foden’s victims were described as vulnerable, targeted by him for this reason.
During the trial, it was revealed that several people had expressed concern about Foden’s closeness with one victim, known as Child E, in 2019. These were raised with the then-head of education for Gwynedd, Garem Jackson, who passed the concerns onto a safeguarding officer but was told, as no specific allegations had been made, no formal investigation would take place. Instead, he was instructed to remind Foden to “keep an appropriate distance” with young people. Foden was later asked to be the strategic head of another school, Ysgol Dyffryn Nantlle in Penygroes, near Caernarfon.
Foden was sentenced to 17 years in prison, with the judge calling him a “depraved…bully,” with “an obsession with teenage girls.” All of Foden’s victims were described as vulnerable in one way or another, which made them an easy target for him. The former head teacher’s arrest prompted other victims to come forward, describing a similar pattern of behavior
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