Credit: Alamy Stock Photo
CHILDREN at Fettes College were “wholly failed” by the school where vile abusers targeted vulnerable kids over four decades, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has found.
Lady Smith found pupils were sexually, physically and emotionally abused from the 1950s onwards at the boarding school in Edinburgh.
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In 2022, a former pupil who was abused by a former teacher at the school was awarded £450,000 in damagesCredit: Danny Lawson/PA Wire
She said it is “shameful” that children were not protected from abuse, which has left some still suffering decades on.
Fettes College said it apologises “unreservedly” to those affected, insisting the “culture of safety and welfare at our school now is unrecognisable from the past”.
In her report published on Wednesday, Lady Smith said racism was also prevalent at Fettes well into the 21st century, while girls were treated as “second-class citizens” after the school went co-educational.
She said: “Children were wholly failed by the school. They could have been readily protected, and it is shameful that did not happen.
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“Had complaints been listened to and acted upon at the outset, many children would have been saved from abuse. The suffering they still endure, over 50 years later in the 2020s, could all have been prevented.”
Former prime minister Sir Tony Blair, who has not been involved in the inquiry, was a pupil at Fettes.
In 2022, a former pupil who was abused by a former teacher at the school was awarded £450,000 in damages.
It was a boys-only boarding school until 1972, when it started taking female day pupils, before becoming fully co-educational in 1983.
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Inquiry chairwoman Lady Smith said perpetrators of abuse included a headmaster, the late Anthony Chenevix-Trench, and Iain Wares, who is facing allegations of abuse.
Wares, who also taught at Edinburgh Academy, currently lives in South Africa, where extradition proceedings to return him to Scotland are ongoing.
Commenting on the appointment of Chenevix-Trench, Lady Smith said: “Chenevix-Trench was appointed as head of Fettes, having previously been head of Eton College.
“He was, in fact, a man who was unfit to be appointed to lead a school on account of his having lost the trust of senior masters at Eton, having a problem with drinking, and having a propensity to beat boys excessively.
“He was appointed despite these matters having been expressly disclosed to Fettes by Eton.
“Chenevix-Trench was also attracted to young blond teenagers at Eton, a predilection of which the provost of Eton College was aware.”
Lady Smith found children were physically abused at Fettes both by teachers and by other pupils, and there was a “culture of silence” as victims feared retribution and being ostracised if they complained.
Lady Smith noted an incident during an initiation ceremony in the 1980s when a boy was hung upside down out of a third-storey window by his ankles.
She also said it was “not uncommon to find boys hanging by their underpants from coat hooks and unable to get down, put there by other boys they had annoyed”.
Her report, which forms part of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry’s boarding schools case study, also described a “sexualised culture” which existed at Fettes before and after the introduction of co-education.
On racism at the school, Lady Smith highlighted that “mocking by staff and pupils of anyone who was not British was normalised into the 1990s”.
Retired lawyer George Scott, 60, gave evidence to the inquiry about the abuse he suffered at the hands of Wares in the late 70s.
He said: “It has made me quite emotional.
“My life was changed by the abuse I endured, and it continues to affect me every day almost 50 years later in ways I am not always conscious of.
“Even now I have flashbacks, I struggle to sleep and I feel disengaged from life.
“The findings strengthen demands from survivors for action against the school and those in power who knew what was going on and did nothing to stop it.”
Jed Gordon, 63, who also suffered at the hands of the paedo teacher, called for those who brought him in and protected him to face punishment.
He said: “There are powerful people who were told directly what was going on and refused to stop children from being abused.
“They must answer for what they allowed to happen.”Lady Morag Wise, chairwoman of the governors at Fettes, said: “We apologise unreservedly to those who suffered abuse at the school.”
The inquiry, which aims to raise public awareness of the abuse of children in care, is considering evidence up to December 17 2014, and which is within the living memory of any person who suffered abuse.
Former prime minister Sir Tony Blair, who has not been involved in the inquiry, was a pupil at FettesCredit: REUTERS
The inquiry described a “sexualised culture” which existed at Fettes before and after the introduction of co-educationCredit: Alamy Stock Photo