‘CREEP DRUM MAJOR GRABBED BUM CHEEK’
Student’s court claim against teacher
THE drumming instructor of a boarding school told a 16-year-old pupil “the two of us should have children together”, a jury heard yesterday.
The woman, now a 22-yearold student, said he made the remark at a Christmas concert in the Perthshire school’s central hall, in her final year.
She said she had posed for a photograph with teacher James Clark, 56, the “drum major” at the school, which cannot be identified. She wept after telling a jury: “James Clark touched my bum”. She said: “He reached down and grabbed one of my bum cheeks. He quickly grabbed it, then I moved away.”
The woman said later Clark told her “the two of us should have children together, and described what they would look like, basically describing me”.
Sarah Livingstone, defending, suggested the conversation had taken place while they posed for the photo and Clark had remarked, “We look like a married couple, just imagine how pretty our children would be – tall and blue-eyed.”
The woman replied: “The implication was he would like to have had children with me.”
She said she had thought Clark was “an OK person” until allegations of sexual misconduct were made. She added: “I did think he was a creep, as did most people at the school.”
She was giving evidence on the fourth day of a trial at Falkirk Sheriff Court, where Clark, of Edinburgh, denies sexually assaulting girls aged 11-18 at the school by touching their buttocks between August 2011 and February 2019.
Another of the girls is also said to have been sexually assaulted in a vehicle when she was 16 to 18. He alleges any sexual activity between them was with her consent.