1 month ago
11
BBC
One of Scotland's top private schools failed to protect pupils from sexual and physical abuse, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has found.
The inquiry chair Lady Smith said from the 1950s until the end of the 1980s children at Fettes College in Edinburgh were regularly abused by both teachers and other pupils.
She named several members of staff who had been complicit in the abuse. They included ex-headmaster Anthony Chenevix-Trench, who she said had been employed at the school "despite having a problem with drink, and having a propensity to beat boys excessively" at his former school, Eton.
Fettes, whose ex-pupils include former prime minister Tony Blair, has previously apologised over the abuse.
"Children were wholly failed by the school. They could have been readily protected, and it is shameful that did not happen," Lady Smith said.
She said some victims were still suffering the effects of being targeted by Iain Wares, a former teacher at the school who is now the subject of extradition proceedings from South Africa.
Lady Smith published her findings in relation to residential care at the school as part of an overall case study into Scottish boarding schools.
She said that Chenevix-Trench had also protected abusers and had "protected two, and possibly more, members of staff who had, to his knowledge, abused children at Fettes".
She said he was unfit for the job he was appointed to in 1971, with his previous conduct being "expressly disclosed" to Fettes by Eton.
He stayed in the role until his death in 1979.
Lady Smith also told how Chenevix-Trench had been "attracted to young blond teenagers at Eton", adding that it was something the provost of Eton College had been aware of.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
