Abuse Claims School Head Quits Post

Kincardineshire Observer
August 15, 2013

http://www.kincardineshireobserver.co.uk/news/scottish-headlines/abuse-claims-school-head-quits-post-1-3047778

A former headmaster of a Catholic boarding school at the centre of sexual abuse allegations has resigned from a role at Oxford University.

Father Francis Davidson has been accused of failing to act on reports during his time at the Catholic Fort Augustus Abbey School in the Highlands in the 1970s.

He has quit as monastic superior of the Benedictine college St Benet's Hall, where he was responsible for the welfare of student monks at the university.

Alleged victims who attended the 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. Police are investigating the allegations.

One former pupil told the BBC that he told Father Davidson personally of the abuse but the monks remained in the Abbey. Father Davidson is the only surviving headmaster of the school.

In a statement issued to the BBC, Father Davidson offered his sympathies to former pupils for any historic abuse and said he was "shocked and saddened" to hear of the allegations.

He added: "I do not recall them being reported to me during my time as headmaster of Fort Augustus Abbey School. As investigations into matters at Fort Augustus Abbey School and Carlekemp Priory School are ongoing, I have stepped aside from my role as religious superior at St. Benet's Hall."

Earlier this month, one of Scotland's most senior Catholics apologised to former pupils amid the claims.

Hugh Gilbert, the Bishop of Aberdeen, said: "It is a most bitter, shaming and distressing thing that in this former Abbey School a small number of baptised, consecrated and ordained Christian men physically or sexually abused those in their care."