AUSTRALIA/SCOTLAND
ABC News
[with audio]
A six month investigation by the BBC has found a multitude of allegations of sexual and physical abuse over 30 years at the prestigious Fort Augustus Abbey School in Scotland. Two Australian men are at the centre of the allegations, including one who’s been suspended from the Catholic Church pending an investigation.
Transcript
ELEANOR HALL: The ABC understands that New South Wales Police officers are investigating claims of overseas child sexual abuse levelled at a retired priest in Sydney.
A BBC documentary, aired today, alleges the priest committed the abuse when he was teaching at the Fort Augustus Abbey School in the Scottish Highlands during the 1970s, and then escaped punishment by transferring to Australia.
The Church in Australia says it’s suspended the priest, pending an investigation, as Ashley Hall reports.
ASHLEY HALL: For more than 100 years, devout Catholics in Scotland entrusted their children to the care of the men of God at the prestigious Fort Augustus Abbey School. Located in the Highlands on the banks of Loch Ness, the boarding school seemed to represent an idyllic childhood.
It’s been closed now for about 20 years, but for some of its students what happened there is still fresh in their minds, and it was far from idyllic.
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