Police to Investigate Monk Abuse Claims at Former Catholic Boarding School

Herald Scotland
July 30, 2013

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/police-to-investigate-monk-abuse-claims-at-former-catholic-boarding-school.1375197133

Police have confirmed they are investigating claims of sexual and physical abuse by monks at a former Catholic boarding school in the Highlands.

Alleged victims who attended Fort Augustus Abbey school told a BBC Scotland investigation that they were molested and beaten by monks over a period of three decades from the 1950s.

It has also been claimed that abuse was carried out at Carlekemp, its feeder school in East Lothian.

Both schools are now closed.

A police statement said: "Police Scotland Highland and Islands division are investigating historic reports of allegations of abuse from former pupils at the Fort Augustus Abbey school.

"This is a live inquiry and therefore it would inappropriate to provide further comment at present."

The Lothians and Scottish Borders division said its officers would help the inquiry if evidence suggests that criminal activity occurred at Carlekemp.

Five men claimed on the Sins Of Our Fathers documentary, screened last night, that they were raped or sexually abused by Father Aidan Duggan, an Australian monk who taught at Carlekemp and Fort Augustus between 1953 and 1974.

Fr Duggan died in 2004 but some abuse claims relate to men who are still alive.

Donald Macleod, who attended Fort Augustus from 1961, said he was raped by Fr Duggan when he was 14 but was not believed.

"I was called into the headmaster's office and he said that he'd heard that I'd been telling my parents about Fr Aidan and that I shouldn't tell these lies and that it's a mortal sin to lie about things like that," he told the programme.

The investigation also uncovered allegations that Fort Augustus, a Benedictine abbey, was used as a "dumping ground" for problem clergy who confessed to abusing children.

Dom Richard Yeo, abbot president of the English Benedictine Congregation, which unites autonomous Roman Catholic Benedictine communities of monks and nuns, told the programme: "I'm very sorry about any abuse that may have been committed at Fort Augustus."

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme, Father John Robinson, the patron of a charity for abuse survivors, said the apology does not go far enough.

"There are all sorts of good words spoken, like 'sorry', and I appreciate that. But there is no programme of care for the victims," he said.

"The Church keeps falling back on the safeguarding policy. What we are dealing with is the utter failure of safeguarding."