Born: 6 June 1937. Died: 29 April 2013, in Edinburgh, aged 75.
“After the suicide of a member of staff, James Rainy Brown, I was interviewed by the police for the whole of the next day. I had school lawyers with me and I told them that I wished to speak to the police about all of the challenges that I had faced in safeguarding and child protection. I gave the police everything. They had their correct procedures and they came back and demanded the audit trail. For every single one of the issues, we had an in-depth audit trail of what had been done but our audit trail needed more evidence of seeking external advice and/or the use of the disciplinary process We had this process and I worked on it with my bursar but it was not automatically instinctive for me to place someone immediately on the disciplinary process. I learned that.”—Andrew Hunter, SCAI Witness Statement (17 November 2020)
A report into the exclusive Merchiston Castle School has concluded that for 60 years, “abusers were protected by tradition”. Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry chairwoman Lady Smith has published her findings on the provision of residential care at the Edinburgh boarding school, concluding that over almost six decades, there was a “more or less continuous line of indecency” from two named perpetrators.
A boys-only private school has been criticised for a culture which involved “dreadful abuse” of children almost continuously for six decades. The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry report into Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh found that from the 1950s to the second decade of the 21st century, there was a “more or less continuous line of indecency” from two named perpetrators.
Abuse at a boarding school for boys in Edinburgh was “normalised for generations”, the chair of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has said. Lady Smith published her findings on Wednesday relating to the provision of residential care for children at Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh.
Lady Smith delivers the findings about Merchiston Castle School at the release of Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry’s report “Case Study no. 9: Volume 5: The provision of residential care in boarding schools for children at Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh, between 1930 and 2021”
Closing submissions from Mr Brown, solicitor Paul Reid GC on behalf of Merchiston Castle School, and Mr John Edward on behalf of Scottish Council of Independent Schools.
The headmaster of a leading boarding school [Jonathan Anderson] has acknowledged that a failure to root out child abuse has had a “profound and damaging” impact on the lives of former pupils. Jonathan Anderson, who took over at £35,00-a-year Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh in 2018, said yesterday that his experience of hearing and giving evidence at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry had taught him that victims remained troubled by their experiences “for ever”.
One of Scotland’s most prestigious boarding schools failed to discipline an abusive housemaster for 15 years, an inquiry heard yesterday. Andrew Hunter, who became head of Edinburgh’s Merchiston Castle School in 1998, admitted in email exchanges that he had become aware of James Rainy Brown’s actions that year.
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.
