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The Arts Intel Report

Lucky Boy

At the London prep school where she taught science, 27-year-old Sally Anne Bowen was every boy’s fantasy. So when she entered into a relationship with Gareth, her 14-year-old student, everyone considered him to be “the lucky one.” When the relationship was exposed and Bowen was asked to leave the school, Gareth’s life fell apart. At 15, he was failing all his classes; by 16, he was homeless. As an adult, Gareth battled depression and attempted suicide several times. He struggled to form romantic connections. Thirty-five years later, Gareth sought accountability from both Bowen and the school. He was stonewalled. In a new podcast about Gareth’s experience, the journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou asks whether this story would have ended differently had the genders been reversed. —Paulina Prosnitz

Photo courtesy of Tortoise Media