Let’s Talk About Grammar Schools, Rugby and Rape.
There were two types of kids in my school, ones who attended Medallion parties and ones who didn’t (disclosure: I didn’t). Medallion parties were hosted after every match during the season by a member of the Medallion rugby team.
The Medallion rugby team was made up of the best rugby players in the year, all boys aged between 14 and 15. The parties were hosted at the home of one of the players and in attendance were the most popular, outgoing and beautiful people from that school year. If you are picturing something from an American high school teen movie, you’re probably on the right track.
In my year, the team made it to the Medallion Cup Final, which is hosted at Northern Ireland’s largest rugby stadium, the home of Ulster Rugby, Ravenhill. In the stands were hundreds of fans watching these teenagers as they played. Should these boys remain committed to their rugby training, they would then make it onto the 1st XV. The 1st XV competed for the Schools Cup, for which the final was hosted again at Ravenhill only this time, it was also shown on national TV throughout Northern Ireland. If your school was competing in the final, pupils were given a half-day to attend the match. During my time at Regent House School, I attended numerous matches at Ravenhill. The Medallion team from my year and the 1st XV made both finals there and so I stood with my friends, faces painted in our school colours, talking about our favourite player from the side-lines. It is no exaggeration to say that these boys were treated like minor celebrities.
Amongst the players and their close friends were Jeff Anderson, Dylan Rogers and James McQuillan. Jeff Anderson’s friend James McQuillan’s was conviction for stalking and domestic violence, and his rugby teammate, Dylan Rogers, for the brutal rape and attack of his then-girlfriend.
I am in no way suggesting that the fact some of these men played rugby is to blame for their actions, however, I do feel it is important to bring into context the pedestal upon which these boys are placed and the sense of entitlement, exceptionalism and invulnerability that they grow up to develop as a result of this teenage idolisation.
It may seem far-fetched to some that I could possibly have known Jeff, James and Dylan. However, the predatory nature of these men revealed itself long before their crimes became known. I had a near escape with Jeff when I was 15 and whilst I never met up with James, it was not uncommon for girls my age, that is two to three years younger than James and Jeff, to receive messages and other online interactions from them (as I did) and we knew as a collective that they were trying to garner the attention of as many girls as possible. In fact, it is through the publishing of my previous article that it has been brought to my attention how many women Jeff tried to connect with, as so many others ‘lucky’ to have escaped, have got in touch to share their experiences.
I knew Dylan better than Jeff and James as he was only one year above me and was best friends with a former boyfriend I had at age 18. Dylan Rogers, is now serving nine years in prison in Spain for brutally raping, attacking, beating and locking up his girlfriend during a sustained two-day attack. During which time, he took the sim card out of her phone and deleted all of her contacts, threw eggs at her, pepper-sprayed her and demanded she danced naked for him whilst calling her his ‘slave.’ Dylan also hit her and smashed her head against the wall. He then grabbed hold of her neck and told her “he didn’t care whether he had to kill her” and covered her mouth with tape. His victim managed to escape, naked and covered in injuries, whilst Dylan showered.
James McQuillian, pictured above with Jeff Anderson, was given a nine-month suspended sentence after attacking and stalking his ex-girlfriend after she broke up with him. Ciara Hindman, his victim, who has spoken out about her attack and now campaigns for more appropriate, safe and protective sentencing in Northern Ireland for victims of stalking and domestic violence, sustained injuries to her face, neck and body during the assault. For which James was charged with occasioning actual bodily harm, threats to kill and breaching a non-molestation order. James stalked and harassed Ciara and entered her apartment block on at least 100 occasions between February 10th 2019 until he was arrested on March 29. He turned up at her work as he knew when she took lunch breaks and would appear in and around her building. On one occasion Ciara was sat outside the building with her friends when they saw James leaving when she called the police, they found his shoes on a different floor. There is currently no law relating specifically to stalking in Northern Ireland through which James could be charged.
Whilst I can’t confirm if James played rugby, he was close friends with Jeff who did. He was a part of the social circle's Jeff was in and they shared the same friends. Dylan and Jeff both played on the 1st XV, meaning they were treated as sporting prodigies destined for greatness. In the reporting of both Jeff and Dylan’s sexual attacks, their attendance at a grammar school and their position as rugby players have been mentioned on numerous occasions.
Jeff Anderson pleaded guilty on 27th May 2020 to 10 separate charges of voyeurism against 10 women, recording a female doing a private act for his own sexual gratification, knowing she did not consent to being recorded, sexually assaulting one woman, and assaulting one woman, occasioning her actual bodily harm. Prior to this, two charges of child sex abuse and possession of indecent images of a child were dropped, at that time, Jeff Anderson’s lawyer asked for “a presumption of innocence” — he pleaded guilty four years later. Jeff has since been sentenced to nine months in prison for a separate crime of exposing himself in front of a 12 year old child.
Jeff Anderson comes from an immensely wealthy background, he is the son of Northern Irish PR and marketing leader Colin Anderson, OBE who, according to companycheck.co.uk currently owns liabilities worth £1.7m. During the sentencing in May 2020, it was confirmed that Jeff was working for his fathers PR agency ‘writing advertising jingles’, even when his crimes were known. Jeff also managed to work on a cruise ship as a performer during the course of the trial.
I shouldn’t have to have a personal connection to this case for my anger at his three year suspended sentence for 11 crimes to be valid, but the only thing separating me and many of my close friends from the women who have fought for justice for six years, to protect other women from him, is chance.
When I was 15, Jeff messaged me and told me he was going to a party with my then best friend Laura. I believed him. Laura’s boyfriend was on his rugby team so I assumed she was meeting him there. I had never had a boyfriend, or kissed a boy but Jeff, 3 years my senior, had added me on MSN messenger as I had been in the senior school play with him. He never spoke to me in school, only on messenger.
I was flattered, even though I didn’t find him attractive and thought his insistence on singing all the time was pretty obnoxious and irritating. I knew he was popular and as a teenager, popularity is a currency you can’t buy into unless you’ve invested early. So I agreed to have him collect me from my house and take me to the party. He told me he knew where I lived because I lived next door to one of our teachers, who was the parent of one of his friends. I went out to his car, a new black 4×4 SUV, and got in. On the seat was a Dominos pizza and he was wearing Canterbury tracksuit bottoms and his school rugby top — ‘weird choice of clothing for a party’ I thought, but didn’t vocalise.
We drove past Laura’s house and when I asked why we weren’t stopping to collect her, he said something about getting her later and stopping off at his first. We went to a house where there were bottles of beers on the counter. He asked if I wanted one, or some pizza, and I declined.
When I’m feeling awkward or embarrassed, I shut down. I sat on the sofa, my face no doubt infantilised by my thick, robustly applied teenage make up, wearing leather leggings and a top, waiting to head to the party I was told my friend would be at. He started drinking a beer and my stomach sunk as I realised that would mean he couldn’t drive. He then started playing guitar and singing at me — something I’ve always found so cringeworthy to the point I can remember my arms feeling warm and tingly with un-comfortability. He asked me to join in and I said no. He started singing a song by the Kings of Leon and then asked me if I wanted a beer again. Again, I said no. He said he had lots of drinks; vodka, gin etc and he was right, the kitchen looked like a fully stocked bar.
By this point I was feeling incredibly awkward. I think he could sense it and he was clearly annoyed I wasn’t drinking or taking part in the evening. He started making fun of me in what I assumed was meant to be a playful manner. Asking me who I fancied in school, if I was a virgin; embarrassing, intrusive questions no teenage girl wants to answer to themselves, never mind to one of the most ‘popular’ boys in school.
I can remember feeling overwhelmed with embarrassment and awkwardness walking home. I thought about how everyone would think I was a complete idiot if I told them I had gone to his house and walked away. He was popular, rich, powerful, in the rugby team and in favourable standing amongst everyone in the school. I never spoke about it again.
Fast forward to 2015 and I had a message from one of the only friends I told about that night asking if I lied about what happened and had actually slept with him — “NO! I honestly didn’t. Why?” — ‘Because he’s been arrested. For sexual assault, voyeurism, child sex abuse and loads more.’
Three men, within a two-year age span in my school, have been convicted of physically or sexually abusing women. When we consider that only 15% of those that experience sexual violence report it to the police, and of those reported only 1.7% end up in convictions, it’s equally astonishing and terrifying to realise how much of an exception these men are to have even been caught and convicted.
The Schools Cup Final for 2020 was cancelled due to COVID, however, the 2019 final featured a promo video which was shared on the Ulster Rugby Youtube channel. In the video, which opens to the screams of an adoring crowd, boys of 17 or 18 years of age pose in sponsored rugby shirts, pitted against each other in a setting familiar to professional sport. If it wasn’t for their pubescent faces and bodies, teenage acne and overly styled — could only be a teenage boy — haircuts, you could be forgiven for assuming that this video was for full-time salaried players in a premiership league final.
Whilst there were no Youtube videos or ‘promos’ when I was in school, the sensationalising, adoration and worship with which these young men — boys — were treated was palpable, especially in the run-up to a cup match.
Numerous men who knew Jeff, many of whom played rugby with him, have messaged me, some anonymously and some bravely revealing their identity, to tell me of their regret and guilt at not doing something sooner. “He showed me a video on the tour bus once of a naked girl but I assumed someone sent it to him.” “I heard he had a spy pen but I never saw anything from it.” “He would come and sit beside me sometimes when we were heading to a match and talk about all the girls he’d slept with.” I understand the guilt these men now feel; how could they have known that Jeff would actually be committing crimes that were so obscene, so deplorable?
What we must now ask ourselves as people who want to see an end to the pervasiveness of this kind of predatory and abusive behaviour is what allows these boys to grow up into men that commit this kind of heinous acts. Regardless of the complete lack of appropriate sentencing in two of these cases, the environment in which these boys are brought up, the sense of elite-ness, of impenetrability and invulnerability that they develop from such a young age, when they’re told by their elders that their purpose in life, in rugby, in sport, is bigger than themselves, surely impacts how they move forward in the world and how they see themselves reflected in it.
Once again, this article isn’t an attack on rugby as a sport per se, more, it seeks to highlight the undeniable link between raising boys to behave like men long before they can understand who they are and what their place is in the world.
Had Dylan, Jeff and to an extent James been relieved of the pressure of toxic masculinity, to not feel obliged to fulfil the roles forced upon them by a system that only respects and recognises physical prowess as a currency of what it means to be a man then perhaps their minds wouldn’t have become so warped in their sense of right and wrong. Perhaps if they didn’t feel a sense of entitlement and privilege resulting from the formative years of their lives being played out as heroes on the rugby field then maybe they wouldn’t have felt at liberty to take from the women closest to them whatever they felt they wanted, without their consent. Or perhaps they would have committed these crimes regardless.
Having spent 5 years of my life walking past them in the corridors of our school, knowing who they were before having learnt their second names and watching as parents, teachers and pupils alike shouted their names and screamed their praises from the side-lines, I do believe that the sense of small-town celebrity culture in which these men grew up has played a very crucial part in the criminals they have become.
For further information on Ciara Hindman and her remarkable campaign to introduce stalking laws in NI please visit this link.
