I feared for my life, says ex-pupil of dorm abuse

A FORMER pupil at a preparatory school ‘feared for his life’ after abuse by a teacher, an inquiry heard yesterday.

The man, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry about his ordeal at New Park School in St Andrews in the 1970s, and how it still affects him.

He told the hearing in Edinburgh: ‘It will stay with me forever, until the day I die.’

In evidence to Judge Lady Smith, the witness, known only as ‘Andrew’, said that soon after he had moved to the senior school, aged around ten, he was pinned down at night in his dorm by a teacher, who covered his mouth and abused him.

He told Andrew Brown, QC, inquiry counsel, that he thought it was ‘unbelievable’ that somebody would be ‘that brazen’. He said his abuser would pull him away to get him on his own, and was impossible to avoid.

In a statement to the inquiry read out by the QC, Andrew said during his time at the school he thought he would die.

The former pupil said: ‘I spent my time fearing for my life. I lived this 24 hours a day.’

He said he is still terrified of physical and mental constraint.

Andrew was taken out of the school and later found out the teacher responsible had been jailed for just six months.

He was sent to Fettes College in Edinburgh and ‘loved virtually every minute of it’.

But another pupil, known as ‘Alistair’, said he was not happy at the school, and there was a culture of violence and abuse which had a scarring impact.

He told the inquiry he was forced to line up by older pupils who used a makeshift dart gun, and if younger pupils moved they would be hit with hockey sticks.

Alistair said ‘small boys became traumatised men’.

The inquiry continues.