Former Edinburgh Academy teacher beat and throttled boys, court told

A “sadistic” former teacher at an elite Scottish private school has been accused in court of physically assaulting and throttling young boys in his care, some of whom were allegedly left unconscious.

Former pupils at Edinburgh Academy, one of Scotland’s most prestigious fee-paying schools, allege that John Brownlee, now 89, abused and terrorised boys as young as eight while teaching there and running a school boarding house between 1967 and 1987.

Edinburgh sheriff court has heard evidence that Brownlee habitually and ritualistically assaulted the boys with a wooden paddle known as a clacken, or smacked, kicked and punched them without provocation – allegations that Brownlee has previously denied.

Neil McDonald, 55, a former army officer, and other witnesses have told the court that the worst abuses took place at Dundas House, the prep school’s boarding house near the city’s Royal Botanic Garden.

McDonald told the court that Brownlee would “bounce” boys’ heads off a corridor wall or off their desks during homework. If he was particularly angry, Brownlee would grab the back of a boy’s collar, twisting and flexing his knuckles to “choke you with your own shirt”, McDonald said.

“He would pick you up [by the collar] and he would kick you,” he told the court. “I didn’t weigh much. I was eight years old. As if he was kicking a rugby ball, you would swing [in the air] with the force. [When] he had finished, he just launched me against the wall. I was petrified. I was crying. I was a mess.”

In common with other witnesses, McDonald said his experiences with Brownlee had led to significant long-term mental ill health. A psychiatrist had diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder. “I hate myself. I see myself as a loathsome piece of shit. I can’t stand being me,” he told the court.

The court has convened a special hearing into 36 charges of assault, assault to injury and cruel and unnatural treatment involving 38 former pupils. It is sitting without a jury after Brownlee was declared unfit for trial due to dementia.

The hearing, known as an examination of facts, is due to last three weeks and will allow the sheriff, Ian Anderson, to issue a factual decision on Brownlee’s guilt short of a criminal verdict.

The case is the first against five former Edinburgh Academy staff accused of assaults, some including rapes and attempted rapes, against pupils. Hamish Dawson, a former master who is now dead, is accused of repeated sexual assaults against boys there.

The BBC broadcaster Nicky Campbell – a day pupil at the school from 1966 to 1978 and one of Dawson’s alleged victims – told the court on Wednesday that Brownlee was by turns charismatic and arbitrarily violent.

Brownlee would allegedly regularly line up boys in class to be beaten with the clachan, a bat used by the academy for a traditional ballgame known as hailes.

“It was horrendous, absolutely horrendous,” Campbell said. “If you were waiting, it was like psychological torture, because you’re like a cow in the slaughterhouse. That feeling of sheer terror.”

On one occasion, Brownlee allegedly pummelled Campbell on the back of his neck and head, raining blows like “a knuckle dance down on my skull”.

That abuse and sexual assaults by other staff had left him having panic attacks, anxiety disorders and nightmares, he said. “It has affected me profoundly,” Campbell said. “He’s there with me at night-time.”

Another former pupil said that when Brownlee once threw a chalk duster at him, it struck a wall with such force that it dented the plaster. He said Brownlee would lash out at boys with his fists or feet “almost playfully”. Another accused the former master of forcing boys aged nine and 10 to dig his garden during winter after being hit with a snowball.

Another, who has asked not to be named, said Brownlee subjected him to a frenzied assault, “spraying spittle” from his mouth as he slammed a folding blackboard door on his head repeatedly until he lost consciousness.

Another former boarder who lived at Dundas House, John Graham, told the court earlier this week that Brownlee would inflict gratuitous pain by combing the boys’ hair in the morning very hard with a steel comb to produce a regulation side parting.

He recalled being punished for an altercation with another boy with the clachan, used on his bare buttocks. Brownlee allegedly rubbed his hands over his behind before ordering him to take a cold bath. “It’s humiliating,” Graham said. “You couldn’t tell anyone anything – you would get battered.”