Former pupils at a Scottish boarding school have told how they were touched inappropriately and received brutal beatings in scenes akin to Lord of the Flies.
The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry heard evidence that teachers at Merchiston Castle in Edinburgh, one of the country’s most expensive private schools, mistreated the children.
James Rainy Brown, a former housemaster, is said to have punished first-years by ordering them to strip and sit in a bath of cold water as he watched.
The teacher took his own life in 2013 amid a police investigation for making inappropriate comments to boys during his 52-year career at the school.
A former pupil, 64, who gave evidence to the inquiry under the pseudonym John Crawford, said the school would not have taken action after complaints by the pupils.
He said: “I think it could be described as ‘don’t yell and don’t tell’. In the public school code, you’re meant to be stoical, Calvinistic. You had to accept there was a form of corruption and basically the school would behave in whatever manner pleased it.”
Crawford said the school’s Latin teacher, named only to the inquiry as Peter, behaved inappropriately and touched a boy’s shoulder in class.
He said: “We certainly would have thought it was wrong but what would have been the point [in speaking up]? No one would have listened. Nobody.”
Another teacher, named to the inquiry as Edward, developed a reputation for touching boys under the guise of checking their medical welfare if they had suffered a sports injury or after corporal punishment, Crawford said. “Usually when he had caned boys he would massage them, then have a feel around. I was certainly not the only one who had Edward’s fingers in their athletics shorts,” The Scottish Daily Mail reported him saying.
A pupil called Mark, 53, who attended the school in the 1980s, told the inquiry that Brown had ordered him to strip off his underwear to have his calves massaged as he had been suffering from cramps.
Mark said he was bullied for being “different” but that staff did “nothing whatsoever” to help pupils.
He said: “There was not a pastoral or wellbeing element. There was no one you could specifically go and talk to. It was very much a case of get on with it. I think I described it in my statement as like the Lord of the Flies, and I think that’s an accurate description.”
A pupil known as William, 61, said he was denied mental health support by the school and that he would go on to stab another pupil with a penknife.
William, who was left traumatised by a sexual assault at Duncan House prep School in Moffat, Dumfriesshire, was the victim of homophobic bullying.
He said that when he raised his distress with Merchiston Castle he was told “no boy gets special treatment here, it’s like it or ship out”.
The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, established in 2015, has examined reports of abuse in several of Scotland’s boarding schools. The inquiry continues.
