Geography teacher accused of rape by millionaire’s girl escapes jail

Those who attended Kato Harris’s geography classes or accompanied him on field trips to Iceland could not fail to be inspired by his love and knowledge of the subject.

Indeed, so well regarded was the ‘brilliant’ teacher by colleagues and pupils alike that two years ago he was already well on his way to fulfilling his dream of becoming a headmaster.

Today that dream lies in pieces – all thanks to the word of a deeply troubled 14-year-old schoolgirl.

Suspended from his job at the £30,000-a-year public school where he became deputy head after leaving the school where the alleged rape took place, the damage inflicted on the 37-year-old’s reputation may never be undone.

Of course, Mr Harris is not the first person to have fallen foul of the law that provides anonymity for those who bring accusations of sexual assaults, while those whom they accuse are subjected to the full, public glare of criminal proceedings.

But even so his case, which ended yesterday with a jury clearing him of three counts of rape after less than half an hour of deliberations, raises serious questions as to why charges were ever brought in the first place. His accuser, the daughter of a wealthy family, was unhappy at her school.

She claimed she had been the victim of name-calling by teachers and bullying at the hands of her classmates, and was so highly strung she once had a panic attack when given a bad mark.

She barely knew Mr Harris and yet on three separate occasions over the autumn of 2013 would claim he had invited her into his classroom during their lunch break and then raped her. Despite this supposedly having taken place in a busy building with hundreds of students milling around, apparently no one saw or heard anything untoward at any time.

It would be a full year before the girl would finally tell a teacher at a new school what she said had happened, only naming Mr Harris as her attacker after undergoing weekly sessions with a psychiatrist.

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Suspended from his job at the £30,000-a-year public school where he became deputy head after leaving the school where the alleged rape took place, the damage inflicted on the 37-year-old’s reputation may never be undone

These sessions did not take place in London where she and her family have a £7million townhouse, dividing their time between there and a mansion in the country. Instead she took time out of school once a week to fly to New York to meet her therapist.

Even after Mr Harris had been subjected to the humiliation of being arrested at his school, the girl declined to fully co-operate with police. She refused to hand over her social media account details, saying: ‘I have the right to the privacy of my own Facebook account.’

And there is another troubling aspect about the case. After the girl made the allegations, her parents employed the services of top legal firm Mishcon de Reya.

To help the family they in turn engaged Sue Akers, who in 2012 retired as deputy assistant commissioner after 36 years with the Metropolitan Police.

During the hearing it emerged that she subsequently had a ‘number of meetings’ with former colleagues at Scotland Yard about the case.

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Few would blame Mr Harris for wondering how he had ever found himself in the dock of Isleworth Crown Court

Miss Akers, who famously led three linked phone hacking investigations for the Met, also asked for access to court papers.

To say the involvement of such a high ranking former officer in an on-going investigation was unusual is an understatement. Indeed Detective Constable Sarah Lloyd, the officer leading the investigation, went so far as to describe it as ‘unique’.

Few would blame Mr Harris for wondering how he had ever found himself in the dock of Isleworth Crown Court.

When the jury returned their verdicts he wept and sank to his knees, saying later that ‘the last 20 months have put massive stress on my family and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their love and care’.

How successfully Mr Harris will be able to put those months behind him, only time will tell.

But what is clear is that he was no journeyman teacher – but one who was destined for great things.

Having graduated with a geography degree from Exeter University, he qualified as a teacher in 2001.

His first job was at Alleyn’s School, a private school in South London that he himself had attended as a pupil. He proved a big hit. ‘The best geography teacher I ever had,’ wrote one former pupil on an online site where students can comment on their teachers. ‘Scratch that – the best teacher I ever had. You totally learned stuff whilst not realising it – he was a wicked teacher.’

And not just in the classroom. A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, his academic specialism was glaciology and over the years he would lead a number of school trips to Iceland.

After four years at Alleyn’s he would move on, ending up as head of geography and assistant head at the school where the rape allegations would emerge. That he was highly thought of by his colleagues there can be no doubt.

His former headteacher said: ‘As a teacher, he was outstanding, bordering on brilliant. Pupils adored his lessons. If I were still a headteacher, I would employ him in a heartbeat.’ Another member of staff at the school described Mr Harris as ‘inspirational’.

And so it was that the accusations levelled at Mr Harris came entirely out of the blue.

Unlike him, it is clear that his accuser had not settled in well at the school.

She had been bullied by her fellow pupils and claimed teachers had been rude about her – one teacher had apparently called her a ‘moron’ and another teacher branded her ‘lazy’. According to the alleged victim, the first incident took place during a lunch break when she was aged 14.

‘It was a normal school day,’ she would tell police in an interview recorded on video. ‘Then I was going down the corridor and he asked to see me and said that he wanted to talk to me. We went into the class, then it was all very sudden. It was very quick. He raped me.’

She added: ‘He pushed me down on the floor by my arms and shoulders. He stepped forward so he was standing close to me. He took off my tights with his hands. I was on my knees with my arms in front of me on the floor. I was frozen. I was scared. I didn’t know what was happening. It just stopped and he stood up and didn’t say anything. I pulled up my pants and tights and ran out to the toilet.’

The next attack, the court heard, took place the following month. ‘This time, he just asked to talk to me again,’ she said. ‘I just went with it. I wasn’t doing anything, so I just went with it. I was having a tough time so I thought he was asking about that – I was on edge.’

Asked whether she had suffered any injuries as a result of the attack, she said: ‘I didn’t check.’

The third incident followed a similar pattern.

She said: ‘He asked to see me, to talk about school stuff then forced and pushed me down… but I just went with it because I was having a tough time and I thought it might be different.’

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No doubt Kato Harris will be keen to resume his brilliant teaching career as quickly as possible.

At the time the girl did not tell anyone what had happened to her. In fact the allegations only emerged after she moved to a new school and staff became concerned about her unhappiness, panic attacks and eating habits.

A year after the last of the three alleged rapes, her housemistress persuaded her to write down what was wrong. She handed her a piece of paper that simply read: ‘I was raped.’

Police were alerted but the girl did not initially identify Mr Harris by name. She was only able to do this, she said, thanks to therapy sessions with a psychiatrist in New York.

‘I fly to New York every week to see a psychiatrist,’ she explained.

The court also heard the girl refused to hand all her social media details to the police. ‘They asked to see the messages on the specific day,’ she said. ‘I didn’t refuse the police, I just didn’t want to give them full access.’

Then came the involvement of Miss Akers. It is understood that she was asked to investigate the case by Mishcon de Reya after the girl had given her first police interview. It appears that Alison Levitt QC, a partner at Mishcon, was handling the matter for the law firm.

Ms Levitt joined Mishcon in 2014, having previously worked as the principal adviser to Sir Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions from 2008 to 2013. As such she had been one of the most senior figures within the Crown Prosecution Service, the body responsible for criminal prosecutions.

It should also be noted that like Miss Akers, Ms Levitt also played a central role in the prosecution of journalists for phone hacking.

Meanwhile her new employers, Mishcon, were already involved in pursuing compensation for a number of those whose phones had been hacked by journalists working for News International.

Miss Akers regularly spoke to the girl’s mother – and also had contact with the girl.

William Clegg QC, defending, told the court that Miss Akers had held a ‘number of meetings with serving officers about the case’ and had asked for access to court papers.

Last night the Mail asked Mishcon to clarify their relationship with Miss Akers, what her involvement with the case had been, and how much she had been paid.

‘We are not party to the case but we have been retained by the complainant’s family,’ was all a spokesman would say. ‘We do not discuss on-going client matters.’

The Metropolitan Police, meanwhile, failed to comment when asked to give details about contact between Miss Akers and officers working on the case.

As for Mr Harris, from the moment he was arrested he strenuously denied the allegations.

‘I can’t imagine doing something so abusive, so unspeakable, especially to a child,’ he would tell police. ‘There are no shades of grey. There was no private contact either in private study or geography lessons.’ He added that attacking the girl in the way she claimed would have been impossible. His classroom had a glass panel in the door and the corridor would have been busy at that time with staff and pupils.

The only motive he could think of for her possibly accusing him was that he had been overheard saying ‘there’s always one’ while looking at her pulling a silly face in a school photo.

Other girls then teased the girl about it and she had become resentful about it.

In interview, Mr Harris also told the officer that medication he was taking had impacted his libido.

He had started taking the medication after the break up of his marriage with investigative journalist Heidi Blake.

While at the Sunday Times her investigation into alleged bribery by Qatar to win the 2022 World Cup earned her a number of accolades.

She too was a former pupil at Alleyn’s and being seven years Mr Harris’s junior would have attended the school as a pupil at the same time he taught there. They married in 2011 and are understood to have separated two years later and subsequently divorced. Mr Harris has since had a child with a new partner.

No doubt he will be keen to resume his brilliant teaching career as quickly as possible.

And to put the day of his arrest – ‘the worst day of my life,’ as he put it – as far behind him as he can.