Now extradited priest, 87, faces abuse charges spanning 33yrs
A FORMER priest appeared in court yesterday accused of a string of child abuse charges after being extradited to Scotland from Canada.
Robert MacKenzie, 87, allegedly physically and sexually assaulted boys at Roman Catholic boys’ schools over a period of 33 years.
He appeared in private at Inverness Sheriff Court after spending a night in the cells in the city. He was flown back to the UK earlier this week.
MacKenzie, who entered the dock with the aid of a walking frame, made no plea to 17 charges of physical and sexual abuse.
His solicitor, John MacColl, made no application for bail.
Sheriff David Sutherland ordered that the former priest be held at Porterfield Prison in Inverness until his next court appearance, which is expected to be within the next eight days.
The alleged offences span 33 years – between 1955 and 1988 – when MacKenzie was a teacher and priest at a preparatory school in North Berwick, East Lothian, and in Fort Augustus, Inverness-shire.
Fourteen of them are said to have taken place in Fort Augustus and three in North Berwick. Seven of the charges allege sexual abuse, while the rest are connected to accusations of assault.
MacKenzie served in Canada for more than three decades after leaving his post at Fort Augustus Abbey in 1988.
Canada’s justice minister approved an extradition request from the Crown Office last April, after it was first lodged in 2017.
But it took nearly a year to bring him back to the UK to face justice after his legal team appealed. At the time, his Canadian lawyer Alan McIntyre said MacKenzie ‘denies any inappropriate sexual contact, or any sexual contact, with any of the complainants’.
He added: ‘In the material he shared with the minister of
‘Denies any sexual contact’
justice, he pointed out he had administered appropriate corporal punishment consistent with what others administered and received at the time.’
MacKenzie, originally from Edinburgh, was educated in Rome. He was a teacher and housemaster at
Fort Augustus Abbey, run by Benedictine monks.
The abbey, which closed in 1993, was among the schools being investigated by the long-running Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry.
A police inquiry began in 2013 after allegations emerged of abuse at the school.
MacKenzie moved in 1988 to Saskatchewan, which is in westcentral Canada and borders the US. He served in the province’s towns of Cupar, Dysart and Lipton before retiring in 2002, although he continued to conduct mass.
MacKenzie’s court appearance comes a month after another abbey priest, 83-year-old Denis Alexander, was extradited from Australia for a private appearance in Inverness on similar sexual and physical abuse charges. Alexander was also remanded in custody and is awaiting trial.
Last year, a former pupil of Fort Augustus Abbey launched a sixfigure bid for damages over claims that he was the victim of systematic child abuse.
Lawyers acting for Hugh Kennedy are pursuing a civil action against school trustee the Right Rev Paul Bonnici – even though he is not linked to the allegations.
The Benedictine order which ran the school has denied any liability. But solicitors have lodged a civil action specifically naming Father Bonnici, who is the only remaining trustee of the Fort Augustus Abbey Board. His last known residence is in Malta.