Musical director ‘targeted young girls in his care’

A “brilliant and charismatic” musical director of a renowned northern music school abused his position of trust to sexually target young female students, a court has heard.

Michael Brewer, 67, “could not keep his hands off at least two pupils and propositioned a third” during his time at Chetham’s School in Manchester.

He is accused of committing a string of indecent assaults against one girl in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and is also said to have raped her in the presence of his wife, Hilary Kay Brewer, also 67.

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She is also on trial at Manchester Crown Court accused of aiding and abetting the rape and committing a separate indecent assault on the alleged victim.

Peter Cadwallader, prosecuting, told the jury Brewer had also acted in an improper way towards two other pupils – years after the alleged rape victim left the school.

He pinned a 17-year-old girl against a wall during a school trip and said to her “You want it really, don’t you?” before she swore at him, ducked beneath his arms and ran off, he said.

Such behaviour against a 17-year-old was not a criminal offence at the time, but Mr Cadwallader said: “It showed his willingness to proposition and, if she agreed, to have a sexual relationship with a pupil.”

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And in the early 1990s he was forced to resign following an inappropriate relationship with a 16-year-old girl, the prosecutor told the court, which was discovered when Chetham’s principal stumbled upon the pair one evening as he walked past Brewer’s office.

“A mini inquiry was started and the upshot was that the defendant was essentially forced to resign as the music director in the school because of his inappropriate behaviour,” said Mr Cadwallader. “The Crown say this is a pattern. He targets young girls in his care, in their early teens and mid-teens. That is what he gets his sexual kicks out of.”

Brewer, of Swarthmore Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham, denies rape and 13 counts of indecent assault, while Hilary Kay Brewer, of Knowl Gap Avenue, Rossendale, Lancashire, denies one count of indecent assault and aiding and abetting rape.

The court heard the victim was above the age of consent when she was raped but had essentially “submitted” to the couple.

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“The defendant, Michael Brewer, during the time she was at the school, and indeed up until 1994, was the music director,” Mr Cadwallader said. “He can be properly described as a fine musician, a brilliant teacher. A man who can be described as dynamic and very charismatic. His only problem, the prosecution allege, is that he could not keep his hands off at least two female pupils and propositioned a third.”

The complainant said Brewer sexually abused her from the age of 14. The jury was told she did not make an official complaint.

“It started with him hugging her,” Mr Cadwallader said. “Indeed that was something he did with a number of students, both privately and in public.”

The intimacy developed though into Brewer touching her private parts and her performing oral sex on him, said the prosecutor. It happened on a regular basis and also took part in his office on evenings when Brewer worked late and at weekends.

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She was also sexually abused in Brewer’s camper van which was parked on school grounds, and he also indecently assaulted her on a canal bank in Manchester.

Mr Cadwallader told jurors that as a vulnerable youngster she saw the abuse as “a small price to pay for the affection”.

The alleged rape took place when she visited the Brewers’ home where Hilary Kay Brewer “made it clear” she knew about their relationship, he said. “She came out with the extraordinary statement that she had always wanted a sexual relationship with a woman and that because of what had happened the complainant owed her.”

The teenager made it “perfectly clear” she was not interested but the defendant made the girl go upstairs where she “performed sexual activity” on her.

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Afterwards, he said, Hilary Kay Brewer told her husband to show her “what he had done to the complainant a few years before. He had sexual intercourse with her at that time and at the time (the victim) was not consenting.”

The trial continues today.

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