Gordonstoun pupils ‘suffered abuse at hands of staff and fellow boarders’

Gordonstoun in Moray, a favoured private school of the Royal Family, has uncovered 11 alleged incidents of abuse as well as 82 claims of bullying by pupils, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has heard.

Principal Lisa Kerr spoke of her shock after learning that some ex-pupils had been sexually and physically abused.

She said there had been cases of severe bullying in the 1970s and 1980s. But she denied that action had not been taken in a bid to protect the school's reputation and financial position.

She told the inquiry that in the 1970s and 1980s there was "a completely unacceptable view that these were just things that happen”.

Ms Kerr said she believes the trust and autonomy of house masters in boarding schools in the 1960s and 70s was "astonishing and unacceptable" by today's standards.

Andrew Brown QC, senior counsel to the inquiry, asked Ms Kerr about the oversight of housemasters in the boarding school, which was attended by the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles and his siblings.

He said: "Looking at the historical approach to schooling, there was a greater assumption that these systems would work, in terms of oversight. Oversight would be present in terms of a house master, who had a great deal of responsibility in running, for example, discipline."

Ms Kerr said: "I think the level of autonomy that was granted to the house masters, in that era, is at a level that these days we'd find astonishing and completely unacceptable. And it's not hard to draw a line between that and, particularly, the peer-on-peer bullying that some students experienced."

Mr Brown said: "It is clear that the way individual houses were run impacted [on] the degree of reported abuse or abuse discovered looking through the records. Some weren't managed well."

Ms Kerr agreed, saying: "There are individual incidents, some of them particularly serious, but there is a period of particular concern where some houses were clearly not well run and, if that was known about, nothing appropriate was done about it."

Mr Brown said: "Does the school accept that that sort of set-up can allow a code of silence, where things are kept in-house?"

Ms Kerr said: "I've reflected a great deal on why that culture might have existed. It wasn't a universal experience. I think there were a couple of possibilities for this. That amount of trust and autonomy went wrong – it went too far.

"The second is that it was during a period of time where some people were of the – completely unacceptable view – that these things just happened. Staff moving from other schools, or even some pupils, coming from a culture where these things just happened."

Mr Brown noted that the school had found 11 incidents of alleged abuse of children involving staff and 82 cases of peer-to-peer abuse .

Ms Kerr said there was “a very conscious decision to be pro-active” when the claims emerged. "We have set up an alumni response team who are specifically trained to speak to survivors of abuse.

"I continue to correspond directly with a number of survivors.”