Broadcaster Nicky Campbell has joined other ex-pupils of Edinburgh Academy in demanding police arrest a former teacher accused of brutally assaulting them. Campbell and his friends, who are at the heart of the allegations against John Brownlee, now 88, say they were told by police last week they now had evidence from around 80 alleged victims.
The men, in their 50s and 60s, have revealed an astonishing catalogue of sadistic abuse they say was carried out by Brownlee, who taught at the elite private school for 31 years, rising to be deputy head while terrifying his pupils.
Brownlee, who was a housemaster for many years with responsibility for boys who boarded, is the subject of an ongoing police investigation but his victims want him charged before it’s too late. But Police Scotland has told them it wants more time to investigate.
One man said: “He’s 88 and needs to be accountable for actions that ruined many lives. If they have enough evidence to charge him, what are they waiting for? Given his age, we know he might not last long enough to be tried, or might get a medical exemption, but it’s important to his victims that he’s charged and knows he’s been caught.”
Campbell, who has taken part in a number of moving broadcasts in the past year about the nightmare he and others endured at Edinburgh Academy, told the Record: “Far too many of us suffered from his gratuitous violence. For those in the boarding houses it was 24/7, relentless and unspeakably cruel.
"Of course his age is a consideration, although age was never a consideration for him. I remember being hit with his knuckles and feeling his knuckles down my neck and on my head. To this day, I feel terrified when I think of this man.”
Edinburgh Academy celebrates its 200th anniversary next year. The late Queen Elizabeth visited the academy in 1974 for the 150th anniversary when Campbell and his fellow survivors were pupils.
In August this year, a new chapter of evidence will be heard at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry devoted to the Academy, which was not among the boarding schools originally singled out by the inquiry’s lawyers.
But so many allegations about so many former staff have emerged over the past year, the inquiry could not ignore it. Campbell and his fellow ex-pupils have established that Edinburgh Academy employed at least 17 teachers who were abusers between 1953 and the mid-1990s.
At one point in the 1970s, when they were at the school, nine were employed at the same time, creating a climate of fear that produced hundreds of victims.
One of Brownlee’s former colleagues, Iain Wares, who is accused of sexual abuse as well brutality at Edinburgh Academy and Fettes, where he also taught, is currently the subject of extradition proceedings from South Africa.
Brownlee was best man at Wares’ wedding in July 1970. At a hearing in Cape Town yesterday, Wares, now 83, appeared to answer charges of sexually abusing a pupil in South Africa in the 1990s, after he left Fettes.
A trial date was set for June and efforts to extradite him to Scotland to face multiple charges here will resume in the autumn. In one of his broadcasts, Campbell said he saw Wares sexually abuse a classmate in a changing room. “I can never unsee it,” he said. “It haunts me.”
Another Academy ex-pupil said yesterday: “Wares is now rightly being pursued but it’s very important, symbolically, for all of us that Brownlee is charged too, even if he never goes on trial. I am not motivated by revenge, but I want people to be accountable, even if it’s only in their own conscience.
“Over the years he was at the school thrashing small children, how many people enabled him by turning a blind eye? If people close to him knew he had that rage in him, and other staff certainly did, I’d like them to think about the consequences of his actions and know he ruined many lives and maybe they need to live with those consequences too.
“He was terrifying. At times he would run at a small child and literally kick them into the air and whack us with a wooden clacken bat, used for an old ball game. He would throw us around like rag dolls, whack us around the head, beat us black and blue.”
Another member of the group said: “Part of me died at the Academy. I was terrified and would wear five, six pairs of underpants knowing he would thrash me every day with the clacken. He had no place being a teacher. He was a sadist.
The sight of any school uniform makes my heart stop and it’s especially bad if it’s an Academy uniform. People thought we were privileged to go to the school. I didn’t see it that way. I was terrified the whole time.
“He never gave out lines or detentions, it was straight to the beatings. Sometimes, he flew off the handle and struck you in front of everyone, but other times he liked to tell you you’d have to wait behind after everyone left and he knew you’d be quaking.
“Once, when I was in that position, I was around 10, I cracked and ran to the front of the room, got on my knees and pleaded with him not to beat me. It made no difference and he thrashed me anyway.”
He added that since he and his fellow ex-pupils formed a group to support one another, they had become aware of an exceptionally high rate of deaths by suicide among ex-pupils of around their age.
He said: “We had small classes, so we’re maybe looking at some 200 boys around my age group but we have had five deaths by suicide. In the school’s 200th year, there has to be proper acknowledgement of this period, which is part of its history, of a systematic level of abuse where abusers covered for one another; apologies have to be meaningful.”
A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “This is an ongoing investigation in which we have a dedicated team carrying out enquiries. Due to the live nature of the investigation, we are not able to comment further.”
The Crown Office does not comment on continuing investigations.
A spokesperson for Edinburgh Academy said: “We have always fully supported the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry which allows former pupils, who have bravely come forward and relived traumatic experiences spanning decades, to have their voices heard and provide evidence.”
The Record attempted to contact Brownlee but were unsuccessful.
Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - Sign up to our daily newsletter here .
READ NEXT:
Scots mauled by vicious dogs call for clampdown after huge rise in attacks
Woman's warning after 'creep' on Scots train 'photographed her while watching porn'
Five unanswered Nicola Bulley questions as police divers sent back to river where body was found
Drugs gang plotted to ship cocaine to Glasgow and armed themselves with hand grenades
