Former school housemaster who assaulted and raped vulnerable children jailed for ten years

A former housemaster at a residential school who assaulted and raped vulnerable children has been jailed for ten years.

William Brydson targeted pupils while employed as head of care at Monken Hadley, latterly known as Woodlands School, in Newton Stewart.

The 78-year-old was convicted of 12 charges following a trial at the High Court in Kilmarnock.

This included charges of rape, indecent assault and assault to injury, with the offences taking place in the 1970s and 1980s and involving nine victims.

Brydson, of Nairn, has been jailed for ten years at the High Court in Edinburgh.

One boy, who was aged ten when the abuse began, was repeatedly punched and kicked by Army veteran Brydson, who grabbed him by the hair and forced his face into a urine-soaked bed.

A second boy became the target for indecent assaults by him when he was 14, and Brydson would watch him showering and painfully hit him on the buttocks with a towel.

Another boy was subjected to years of cruel violence at the school, beginning when he was 11 in 1981. During it, he was grabbed by the neck, struck with a knife handle, beaten with a stick and pushed down stairs.

Brydson also shut him in a cellar, and the boy was left to sit naked on a stone step. The abuser also pushed the boy’s face into food and got him to eat until he was sick, and then made him eat the vomit.

Another boy was attacked by him from the age of 11 on various occasions at the school and at an address in Paisley, in Renfrewshire. The boy was struck and punched on the head, and Brydson kicked and stamped on his body.

He shouted, swore and threatened the boy, grabbed him by the throat and made him take part in boxing matches with other pupils.

A 15-year-old girl was subjected to repeated sexual assaults and raped at the school and nearby woodland. He also dragged the victim by her hair and struck her head against a wall.

A second girl was molested and raped by him at the school and in a car, and Brydson got the victim, who was aged 13 when the abuse began, to perform sex acts on him.

Another girl was indecently assaulted by him.

Brydson was previously jailed for two years in 2003 after physically abusing children at the school, although his sentence was cut to nine months on appeal.

Lady Poole commended victims who gave evidence against Brydson and said it necessitated them reliving experiences “from a very dark part of their lives”.

She told Brydson: “You have been convicted of multiple serious offences against vulnerable children who were in your care.”

She pointed out that two of the victims were girls who were underage when he began raping them and said: “They were scared of the violence you might inflict on them.”

The judge said: “What you did was an appalling breach of trust.”

His name has been added to the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.

Faye Cook, procurator fiscal for High Court Sexual Offences, said: “The conviction of William Brydson lays bare the horrific abuse suffered by vulnerable children at Monken Hadley and Woodlands School.

“What these young people endured was not only criminal – it was a devastating abuse of trust that should never have happened.

“As a house master and head of care, he held a position meant to protect and nurture. Instead, he used it to inflict repeated physical and sexual abuse, leaving lives shattered and scarred.

“The court’s decision sends a clear message to abusers: no matter who you are, when it happened or how long after the event it is reported, there will be a robust response from Scotland’s prosecutors.”