I was sexually abused at my private school reveals Nicky Campbell
Star tells of vile assaults 50yrs ago
BBC presenter Nicky Campbell has claimed he was the victim of abuse at a top Scottish private school during his time there in the 1970s.
The 61-year-old broadcaster said on his podcast he had witnessed and experienced sexual and physical abuse while a pupil at the Edinburgh Academy.
A teacher – known only as ‘Edgar’ – who is claimed to have abused pupils at the school is now facing an extradition case to return to Scotland after 30 accusers are alleged to have come forward.
Speaking about his experiences, Campbell recalled a scene in the changing rooms of the school in 1971 after rugby practice. He said: ‘As I reach my peg, I see a man leaning over my friend.
‘My friend is laughing but I know from the fear in it that it’s not a good laugh. The man is leering and smirking.’
He then told how he witnessed the teacher perform a sex act on the pupil.
Campbell also spoke of a beating he received from the teacher. He said: ‘When I’d been badly and brutally beaten up by a teacher, kicked, slapped and viciously tossed around like a rag doll, I had told my parents.
‘My mother took it as far as she could and got a grovelling apology from him, but was essentially stonewalled and it was hushed up by the school.’
Campbell said the reason he has chosen to come forward is to bring the teacher to justice.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is alleged to have molested dozens of boys at Fettes College in Edinburgh and the Edinburgh Academy, as well as schools in South Africa, where he lives.
Campbell said: ‘I worked it out; given other witness statements on the record, survivors’ accounts, he could well be one of the most prolific paedophiles in British criminal history. He lives abroad, with his wife in comfortable retirement, and efforts to extradite him have failed.’
Campbell also spoke of another alleged abuser at the school. He said: ‘There was a teacher, Hamish Dawson, who is now dead, who had regularly “wandering hands”. Many of us were on the receiving end and me and my friends still talk about it with utter contempt. We were 12.’
Campbell added Dawson put him and others over his knee ‘in mirthful moments where, behind the laughter of the class, he’d tickle...’ while touching the pupils inappropriately.
The teacher was not prosecuted for any offences, he said.
The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, which is looking into cases of historical abuse in Scotland, heard in November that while working at Fettes College, ‘Edgar’ smashed boys’ heads off desks and touched them inappropriately in lessons. A witness, ‘Ben’, who attended the school in the 1970s, told the inquiry in Edinburgh about sexual abuse involving Edgar,
Ben said: ‘It happened every single time I went up to his desk and he taught us two to three times a week.’
A spokesman for the Edinburgh Academy told the BBC it ‘deeply regrets what has happened in the past and apologises wholeheartedly to those concerned’.
A spokesman for the Crown Office said: ‘In order to protect any future proceedings and to preserve the rights of the complainers, the Crown will not comment at this stage.’
Edinburgh Academy was established in 1824. Its motto is ‘Always Excel’. Fees currently range from just over £10,000 for primary one and two, to £16,242 a year for senior pupils. Alumni include Robert Louis Stevenson and James Clerk Maxwell.
‘Tossed around like a rag doll’