THE ONGOING historic sex abuse probe in Britain took a local turn this week when a British expat killed himself at his Sherman Oaks home as police closed in.
Christopher Ling, 57, a teacher accused of sexually abusing young girls at a prestigious music school, killed himself as US marshals entered his San Fernando Valley home at around 6am on Wednesday morning.
Mr Ling, who taught the violin at Chetham’s School of Music until the summer of 1990, faced 72 counts of child sex abuse.
“We attempted to serve an arrest warrant on Christopher Ling and, in the course of that process, he shot himself,” Laura Vega, a marshals service spokesperson, told reporters.
Like so many other British immigrants, the former teacher had reinvented himself as a show business talent manager, after leaving the UK over twenty years ago.
The US Justice Department had agreed to extradite Mr Ling after the British Crown Prosecution Service sought to return him to the UK.
Allegations against Mr Ling emerged after the trial of Michael Brewer, the school’s former director of music, who was convicted of sexual assault.
In 2013, the Guardian reported that 10 former pupils alleged Mr Ling had assaulted them during their time at the school.
Referred to as “Ling’s Strings”, the group of women claimed the music teacher forced pupils as young as 13 to strip naked, would spank their naked bottoms, and groomed them during their lessons.
[adrotate banner=”48″]
