Pupils suffered decades of 'violent and sadistic' abuse at Edinburgh Academy

Pupils suffered decades of sexual, physical and emotional abuse at a boarding school in Edinburgh where acceptance and complacency were “the order of the day“.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry findings on the residential care for children at The Edinburgh Academy has concluded that the physical abuse of children was “normalised” with violence “part and parcel” of an aggressive and rigid culture that persisted into the 1990s.

Lady Smith, chair of the inquiry, said that the school focused on reputation and on how the Academy was perceived, rather than on how life actually was for its pupils.

“For decades the school failed to look at itself through a realistic and critical lens,” she outlined in the findings.

Sexual abuse over four decades

Children were sexually abused by staff at The Edinburgh Academy over four decades, from the 1950s to the 1980s. This included voyeurism, fondling, masturbation, and digital penetration.

The perpetrators of the abuse included two long-serving members of staff: Hamish Dawson, a housemaster and senior school teacher who died in 2009, and John Brownlee, a housemaster and deputy head of the junior school.

They also included a prep school teacher, Iain Wares, who went on to abuse at Fettes College, and William Bain, a physics teacher, now a twice-convicted sex offender, who began his lengthy history of abuse at The Edinburgh Academy before moving on to harm children in other schools.

Dawson engineered situations that enabled him to administer excessive beatings, also adopting an eccentric and theatrical style that masked the fact that he was grooming boys and engaged in sexual abuse that could be sadistic.

The findings detail a “collection of props” Dawson kept in a box by his desk, known as his “instruments of correction”. This included sticks and weapons he used on children in various states of undress.

Dawson perpetrated sexual abuse on children, including sexually assaulting a boy in an empty cricket pavilion and indecently assaulting others while they lay in their bunks.

Lady Smith described his behaviour as “known and even feted” by the school. His “instruments” were auctioned on his departure, and when pornography was found in his desk, nothing was done about it.

“Prolific” sexual abuse was also perpetrated by Iain Wares, both at the Academy and at Fettes and involved very many children and was a regular occurrence, the findings outline.

Wares was charged in South Africa with 90 historical sexual abuse offences in 2025, having previously faced 74 charges of historic abuse relating to more than 40 victims aged as young as nine. He is currently awaiting extradition from South Africa.

Among those to speak of their abuse at his hands was broadcaster Nicky Campbell.

Fettes College previously issued an apology for allowing Wares to keep working despite allegations of abuse because of the intervention of a psychiatrist.

John Brownlee was found to have physically assaulted and emotionally abused children at the school following an examination of facts in 2024.

Brownlee, who was deemed medically unfit to be criminally tried, was found to have assaulted some children with implements, such as a cricket bat, a snooker cue, a clacken, and a leather strap.

Lady Smith’s finding outlined how Brownlee regularly engaged in “knuckle treatment” into the 1990s. This involved him driving his knuckles into the neck of a child.

When beating children, he would have them put their heads in a locker or under a desk, causing them to hit their heads when reacting to the blows on their backsides.

He also regularly kicked boys to punish them, including when they were lying on the floor. He was also found to be racially abusive.

‘Children abused by other children’

Some children were sexually abused by other children and “violent” bullying was the norm, Lady Smith found.

The report details that physical violence by pupils towards other pupils was routine. In the boarding houses, boys suffered abuse during initiation ceremonies where bog washing was commonplace.

On occasion, packs of boys would hunt for a victim. One applicant, to his shame, remembered being part of a group who threw stones at another pupil.

The inquiry heard that children were often forced into large classroom bins which were left on top of a cupboard and left the victim likely to be injured when trying to escape.

One applicant, with the pseudonym ‘Henry’, enjoyed many aspects of his nine years as a pupil at the school but described experiencing and witnessing abuse which was ubiquitous in the daily lives of the children.

He said: “It was normal to groom 11-year-olds with jelly babies, touch them up, and use sadomasochistic sex toys to molest them in front of 20 others.

“It was normal to kick, hit, and strangle, to the point of unconsciousness, ten-year-olds. It was normal to inflict physical punishment with a plank of wood with no good reason.

“It was normal for grown men to inflict psychological belittlement on children. It was normal to allow endless cycles of bullying to go unnoticed or unchecked, and the bullied becoming bullies ad infinitum.

“It was normal … to completely ignore flagrant racism, sexism, homophobia. It was normal to have no safeguarding. It was normal to have no risk assessment.

“It was normal to have no abuse reporting policy or mechanism obvious to the pupils. It was normal for there to be no pastoral care, and it was normal to be somewhere where nobody, not one person, loved or genuinely cared for you.”

Corporal punishment

Children in the prep school were regularly beaten, often in circumstances which amounted to abuse, until corporal punishment was abolished, which was not until 1988.

Prior to the abolition of corporal punishment, staff received only limited guidance and no training about its use.

The report found that staff beat boys with clackens until the 1960s and that the school ‘Beat Book’ from the 1950s records beatings with glee, including those that resulted in clackens breaking from the force used.

Training on abuse began in the 1990s, but one teacher who retired in 2001, after 36 years’ service, only remembered a single day’s course.

Other staff and pupils were aware of such behaviour, but the Academy did not adequately check or discipline the staff involved.

Gap-year students, employed to supervise the boarding houses, could also be abusive.

Following the introduction of co-education in the sixth form, girls were the targets of unpleasant and abusive misogyny. There was no evidence that the school gave any consideration to the obvious risks involved.

Homophobia was found to be rife at the Academy. Racism was prevalent even in the prep school, and involved anti-English sentiment, and some children were abused by other pupils because of their skin colour or because they were Jewish.

‘Poor’ response to complaints

Lady Smith’s report found that, from the early 2000s, reports of past abuse by multiple teachers were made with increasing frequency by former pupils, but the school’s response was poor.

Complaints were never completely ignored, but in 2001 the Academy decided not to investigate or contact former pupils who might have been abused, despite Loretto School, which had faced similar revelations, carrying out investigations publicly.

The Academy, even then, still focused unduly on the risk of harm to its reputation and preferred to look for good news stories rather than facing up to its responsibilities, the report states.

It was found that this response continued until the appointment of the current rector, Barry Welsh.

Lady Smith found that Mr Welsh “has demonstrated a more candid and compassionate response, including engaging actively with former pupils who were abused, and having them engage with the pupils of today.”

Along with the Court of Directors, Mr Welsh has acknowledged significant shortcomings at the Academy both in decades long past and more recently. They have apologised on behalf of the school for the abuse experienced by so many children entrusted into its care.

The findings are SCAI’s 17th volume of findings and eighth in the boarding schools case study.

Barry Welsh, Rector of The Edinburgh Academy, said: “We have a commitment to facing up to the wrongs of the past which remains unwavering. We are grateful to Lady Smith, and we have played our part in her inquiry throughout. Her report makes for sombre reading, and reinforces the remarkable bravery shown by our former pupils who have given evidence.

“We reiterate our sincere apology to all those affected by any abuse that occurred at our school.

“While we cannot change the past, we can shape the future. We continue to support survivors as fully as we are able whilst also educating our current pupils in a caring and supportive environment.”

Laura Connor, of Thompsons Solicitors Scotland, represents many survivors of abuse at Edinburgh Academy.

Commenting on the report, she said: “In her report into Edinburgh Academy, Lady Smith makes clear this was a school where physical and sexual abuse of children was a part of everyday life.

“Combined with bullying, racism and homophobia and very clear picture emerges of a completely dysfunction institution where cruelty and sadism were tolerated and excused.

“The brave individuals who spoke with the Inquiry, many of whom are our clients, have been admirable in coming forward and giving evidence on what they endured. The conduct of those who ran the school was appalling and continues to astonish those who learn of it.

“Those who currently run Edinburgh Academy, while apologising for these dreadful crimes against children, have nevertheless behaved in a very difficult and uncooperative way in settling civil claims for those who were abused. That must end. We also wait to see those remaining Academy perpetrators who have yet to be brought to justice see the inside of a Scottish court room.”