A world-renowned musician who admitted molesting three students has won an appeal against an indefinite teaching ban, after a top judge ruled the ban was “flawed”.
Duncan McTier, a double bassist who has taught at a number of musical institutions in the UK and abroad, sexually assaulted three of his young, female students in the 1980s and 1990s.
In November 2014, the 62-year-old divorcee pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted indecent assault against young women from the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) in Manchester and Purcell school in Hertfordshire.
McTier, of Isleworth in west London, told a 17-year-old girl his wife didn’t understand him and tried to touch her breasts after a music lesson. He also groped two female students aged in their early 20s.
He resigned from a professorship at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) after the allegations surfaced. McTier received a three-month suspended sentence at Liverpool crown court and was ordered to carry out 240 hours of unpaid work.
After his conviction he was referred by the National College for Teaching and Leadership to a professional conduct panel, which recommended he should not be banned from teaching.
However, in July last year, the then education secretary, Nicky Morgan, disagreed with the panel and prohibited him from teaching in any school or sixth-form college indefinitely.
Morgan, acting through an official, also ordered that the ban could not be reviewed until at least 2021.
But after an appeal at the high court, Justice Kerr overturned the ban and said the education secretary, now Justine Greening, would have to make a fresh decision.
The judge said it was “not clear” that the original decision-maker had the ages of McTier’s victims in mind when imposing the ban.
Justice Kerr described the ban as “more draconian than intended”, as it prevented the musician from conducting masterclasses in an educational setting. He also said it would have “no practical effect”, as McTier only teaches privately in the UK and does not intend to teach at any institution in the future.
During an earlier hearing, lawyers acting for the education secretary accepted that the ban would not stop McTier from teaching young women privately in his home.
Justice Kerr said it could be inferred that the purpose of the ban was “punitive, rather than protective”. He added: “For those reasons, I am satisfied the decision is flawed and wrong, and that it must be set aside.”
In 2014, McTier admitted groping a 21-year-old woman in 1994 and a 23-year-old woman in 1988, as well as attempting to grope a 17-year-old girl in 1985. All the incidents took place in his home.
One of his victims said: “Duncan McTier’s conviction will send out a very strong message that it is not acceptable for teachers to abuse their positions of trust in this way, and that even two decades down the line, those who do so will be punished. The relationship between a musician and her tutor is a very intimate one, which can be wonderful, but it is also open to abuse.
“I came forward purely because I want it to be made clear that you shouldn’t abuse this relationship.”
The complainant said she had received emails from other women claiming they too had been assaulted by McTier and gave up playing the double bass as a result. “This conviction vindicates a lot of women, not just from the Royal Northern College of Music,” she said, adding: “Hopefully future generations of musicians will be safer now.”
McTier was suspended from the RAM in London after being charged, but continued to teach overseas, including at the Zurich University of the Arts (Zürcher Hochschule der Künste) and Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid. He resigned from the RAM shortly afterwards.
On his personal website, McTier says he has been “recognised as one of the world’s foremost double bass soloists and teachers” and “inspired a host of superlatives from critics”.
He was one of four former music teachers from the RNCM and Chetham’s school of music charged with sexually assaulting pupils after the conviction in 2013 of Michael Brewer.
Brewer, a former director of music at Chetham’s, was jailed for six years after being convicted of five counts of indecently assaulting his former pupil Frances Andrade.
His former wife, Hilary Kay Brewer, was found guilty of one charge of sexual assault. Andrade killed herself shortly after giving evidence against the pair.
After the Brewers’ convictions, a number of women came forward to claim they were also sexually abused while attending Chetham’s, prompting Greater Manchester police to launch a wide-ranging inquiry called Operation Kiso.
In September 2014, the conductor Nicolas Smith was sentenced to eight months in prison after admitting sexually assaulting a 15-year-old Chetham’s pupil in the 1970s.