Violence, bullying, and sexual assault: Scandal rocks Danish boarding school for the children of nobles and the royal family

Danish TV2 broadcast a shocking documentary about serious abuses reported by former students at a boarding school ranked among Denmark's 10% worst schools in terms of bullying, violence, and abuse. The school is Herlufsholms, a private boarding school with about 600 students between the sixth grade and the third year of secondary school. It is over 450 years old and has close ties to the Danish nobility and the royal family. One of its students is Prince Christian, the future heir to the throne (son of Crown Prince Frederik), who joined the school last August. According to the plan, his sister, Princess Isabella (15 years old), will start in the ninth grade after the summer holidays. Their cousin, Prince Nicolai, son of Prince Joachim, was also a student at the school.

In the documentary, students recounted their experiences and testimonies in detail about incidents of violence, bullying, and sexual assault that occur systematically by some students against other, younger students. The documentary team listened to about 50 students.

Experts and human rights activists commented that if the school administration had done what it should have done, the situation would not have continued as it was. However, according to the testimony of one of the students, after he was severely hit on the head, causing him to bleed, the administration told him that he could inform the police, but asked him to forgive the student who had assaulted him.

Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary expressed their deep shock at the contents of the documentary: “It is heartbreaking to hear about the systematic bullying and the culture of abuse and violence that so many have been a part of. This is completely unacceptable,” they said, adding that they would follow developments themselves.

Education Minister Pernille Rosenkranz-Thill commented that she had “never seen anything this serious before.”.

It is reported that in November 2021, four students were expelled from school because they had recorded videos of various types of abuse.

Helle Rabaul Hansen, a member of the expert committee of the Mary Foundation, an anti-bullying organization, commented that she sees in Herlovsholm a culture without limits where “all forms of violence, subjugation, insults and humiliation are used.”.

The school will begin the investigation.
The school administration announced on Wednesday that it is launching an independent legal inquiry led by attorney John Loritzen, and that it will examine the circumstances depicted in the TV2 documentary. The school stated that it will publish the study exactly as it is within the next few weeks.

This article is a summary of four articles on the same topic from the TV2 website.