Croome Court is one of those stately homes beloved of National Trust members: links with the aristocracy, a landscape designed by Capability Brown, cream teas. Croome Court was once St Joseph’s, a boarding school run by the Catholic Church, and there are pictures on its website of smiling nuns and solemn children. It also records that, in 1962, when a section of the M5 motorway was constructed, it sliced through the Croome estate. Four of the boys tried to escape from Croome on bicycles along the M5 and were brought back by the police. It’s the kind of jolly jape you might find in an Enid Blyton school story.

In fact, the reason was more sinister. The children of Croome Court were being abused – beaten by nuns and sexually abused by priests.