Teacher was upskirted by male student only for school to make him a prefect and order her to keep him in her class – as he is now given £5k BBC-backed bursary
When teacher Sally Rees was secretly filmed up her skirt by teenage student Timothy Boomer, she expected the school to expel him before being thrown in the dock.
But incredibly Ms Rees was asked to teach the then-teenager again when his perverted sexual voyeurism was not pursued by prosecutors because he insisted it was a prank.
‘They didn’t expel him, they made him prefect’, she told MailOnline today.
Boomer, now 24, was aged 14 and 15 when he secretly filmed up the skirts of two of his teachers without their knowledge at Enniskillen Royal Grammar School over the course of 14 months.
He would sneak up and point his camera upwards towards their knickers – but when he was finally caught he claimed it was a childish joke gone too far.
His drama teacher Ms Rees recalls wanting to vomit when she first saw the footage, lasting just under a minute, of her standing at her desk writing as he stood behind her filming up her skirt.
Incredibly, the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) in Northern Ireland initially made a decision not to prosecute the teenager, who had also done it to one of Sally’s colleagues.
She is speaking because she still believes it is ’really important that people start to understand the impact’ upskirting can have on victims and is continuing to campaign on the issue as boss of the NASUWT teaching union in Northern Ireland.
Timothy Boomer, then 18, was sentenced to a 20-hour restorative order following his conviction for five counts of outraging public decency in relation to covert footage he took up the skirts of two teachers, including Sally Rees
Boomer has this year been handed a £5,000 bursary to develop a piano album that combines jazz and traditional Irish music in a prize in collaboration with the BBC and funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland
With the support of NASUWT union, Ms Rees and her fellow teacher took the decision to judicial review, 18 months after the voyeurism was discovered.
Boomer turned 18 during the legal proceedings so was named and shamed.
In 2019 he was convicted of committing acts of a lewd, obscene and disgusting nature and outraging public decency. He received a 20-hour restorative order.
MailOnline can reveal that six years on Boomer is back in the headlines after it was announced he was one of six young people awarded a £5,000 bursary to develop a piano album that combines jazz and traditional Irish music.
The award has been sanctioned by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland who handed him a prestigious Young Musicians’ Platform Award, which is held in collaboration with the BBC.
He is featured in a video publicising the gong and shown smiling in promo material.
Sally Rees has declined to comment on his award, but has spoken about the case saying that what happened to her and a colleague will shock many people.
The bombshell TV series Adolescence and the abuse suffered by women including Gisèle Pelicot has also increased interest in her ordeal, she says.
After his conviction Boomer apologised and said it had been ‘teenage bravado’.
He insisted he was ‘deeply sorry for the distress, worry and pain I have brought about by my actions’.
He added: ‘I want to express my regret and remorse for the hurt I have caused to my teachers. It was a wrong, horrible thing to do and at that age I stupidly and wrongly thought it was a daredevil prank, which I genuinely meant no harm by.
‘I recognise how wrong I was and that my actions have had a devastating impact on my teachers and also my parents, and family. My regrets will be with me for the rest of my life.’
His lawyer said it was ‘a childish prank’.
And initially he almost got away scot free when prosecutors initially dropped the case.
Boomer was suspended for a few weeks but allowed to come back and incredibly the school had expected his victim to teach him.
Sally Rees told MailOnline: ‘I think it was all very much played down, including by Timothy Boomer himself in the card that he wrote to me apologising, “it was just a one off, I didn’t mean any harm, I was only 14”.
‘Well, watching the evidence is it wasn’t a one off. He was 14, and he was 15. It was a pattern of behaviour emerging, which would concern me in terms of being a gateway to more serious sexual offending in the future – generally speaking, not specifically saying that obviously about Boomer in this instance, but also the bottom line is he was still accessing that material at 16 when he was still a pupil in my class.
‘The USB [containing the upskirting files] was discovered by an IT technician with the images and videos on it when he was 16 and in my 6th form Performing Arts class. The images and recordings had last been accessed six weeks prior to the discovery’.
Ms Rees, who is now president of the NASUWT union in Northern Ireland, describes herself as an accidental activist.
‘The way we were treated by the judiciary process was actually traumatising and compounded our trauma’, she said.
‘There was a playing down of it all, on record, saying “this is not a sexual offence, there was no sexual gratification”. They literally took his word for it and that was seen as the fact of the case.
‘I suppose one of the things about it is that there was a lot of victim blaming around the decision to prosecute and it just exposed the fact that actually ultimately the reason it went to court was because Timothy Boomer pleaded not guilty.
‘It wasn’t because me and my colleague and the NASUWT decided to haul this young man through the courts.
‘No, he pleaded not guilty and it the case was fought on a point of law, is school a public place or not.’
Boomer is back in the papers after he became one of six young people awarded a £5,000 bursary earlier this year.
He is a musician whose work is now backed by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and any broadcasts will be facilitated by the BBC.
In February this year, he was among six people who were presented with a Young Musicians’ Platform Awards.
The decision has been criticised but will stand.
Sally Rees has described herself as an accidental activist whose case has shocked many
Boomer is featured in a promo video after he was handed a prestigious Young Musicians’ Platform Award in Northern Ireland
BBC NI has declined to comment. The Arts Council of Northern Ireland said: ‘It is not appropriate for Arts Council NI to comment on information that is unrelated to an individual’s funding application.’
Boomer, pictured in 2019, said the upskirting was a prank and apologised
Sally has said her ordeal has had more coverage now than it did at the time of the offences in 2016.
‘I think that’s to do with Adolescence, the TV programme I think has created this space where we’re starting to talk about these things, and much more in depth, and across civil society in a way that we perhaps weren’t before’, she said.
‘And I would also probably say the Pelicot case, and the fact that he was caught up skirting and that’s how the extent of what he had been doing and the sexual abuse that he been committing was discovered.
‘So it’s quite interesting for me that it’s been given that sort of profile at the moment.
I see that was an opportunity of really extend the conversations that we need to have about preventing this type of sexual offending in our schools and our workplaces and in society in general.’
She is passionate about protecting others who may one day suffer in the same way.
‘I am out there this year as the president of the NASUWT. I have described myself as a bit of an accidental activist because what happened to me has then lead me to this kind of role and this platform.
‘I am still employed and leader of learning of creative and expressive arts in Enniskillen Royal Grammar School because ultimately why should I leave the job that I love because of the way I was treated’.
