A “sadistic” deputy headteacher at one of Scotland’s most prestigious private schools has been found to have conducted a systematic campaign of violence and torture against children as young as eight over a 20-year period.
John Brownlee was found by a sheriff on Wednesday to have committed more than 30 assaults. The former Edinburgh Academy housemaster was formally excused from trial due to his advanced dementia.
Instead, the charges against the 89-year-old were heard in a quasi-trial process known as an “examination of facts” overseen, without a jury, by Sheriff Ian Anderson, who described the teacher’s behaviour as “extreme criminal bullying”.
Brownlee was found to have committed 31 charges of assault and assault to injury, relating to incidents spanning 1967 to 1991, as well as a composite charge of cruel and unnatural treatment across the 20 years he worked as a teacher at the school.
In a case based entirely on the testimony of survivors, Brownlee’s victims – many speaking half a century after the assaults took place – provided harrowing testimony about the arbitrary and gratuitous nature of the violence they endured as children, many boarding away from home for the first time.
The men characterised Brownlee as a “sadist” and a “psychopath”, who relished both the pain he inflicted and the terror of its anticipation.
The teacher was notorious for his use of the “clacken”, a wooden bat he would use to hit their backsides with repeated force, but would also smack, kick and throttle children in his care often without provocation.
Witnesses including Nicky Campbell, the BBC journalist and broadcaster, recounted how Brownlee relished creating an atmosphere of randomised violence and humiliation.
One former boarding pupil recalled Brownlee had a clacken with a smiling face on one side, a sad one on the other. He would at random spin it into the air in the class if a boy had attracted his attention; if it landed sad-face up, the boy would be hit.
Anderson noted that “we recognise now that there may be many reasons why people might delay reporting something that they say happened to them as children”, underlining that “just because there has been a delay does not mean the evidence cannot be correct”.
Speaking on behalf of the Edinburgh Academy Survivors’ Group, many of whom had attended Edinburgh sheriff court to hear the ruling in person, Graeme Sneddon spoke of his relief that “justice has been done”.
Describing Brownlee as a “sadistic, evil and violent monster”, Sneddon went on: “This took place in a primary school, where it was known he was extremely violent towards pupils, and yet nothing was done to protect them as he was the deputy headmaster and other teachers were scared of him.”
Brownlee’s violence had caused “a lifetime of untold damage” to those affected, said Sneddon, adding: “Today’s verdict after almost three weeks of evidence and a year of police investigations sends a strong signal that the law will one day catch up with anyone who abuses children.”
Edinburgh Academy has come under increasing scrutiny over the past year as former pupils gave their evidence of alleged physical, sexual and psychological abuse there to the Scottish child abuse inquiry.
Responding to the ruling, the current rector of the school, Barry Welsh, reiterated his apology to all those affected by historical abuse, first made during the inquiry hearings.
Welsh said: “Our commitment to facing up to the wrongs of the past remains unwavering. Many former pupils have shown remarkable bravery by giving evidence over several years, and we would like to reiterate our apology to all those affected by any abuse that occurred at our school. Our door is always open to anyone who wishes to discuss their experiences.”
Welsh, who attended both the inquiry hearings and many days of the court hearing, has commissioned Philip Dundas, himself a survivor of abuse at the school, to write a book based on interviews with the abuse survivors, giving their accounts, called Breaking the Silence.
At least five other former staff are facing charges in connection with historical abuse at the school after their arrest last December.
The charges, which follow a lengthy policy investigation and are informed by the testimonies put before the inquiry, relate to abuse incidents alleged to have taken place at the school between 1968 and 1992.
