SCOTLAND
The Press and Journal
A jury has begun considering its verdict in the case of a former monk accused of excessively punishing six schoolboys with a belt and cane at a Highland school.
Defence counsel John Campbell QC yesterday delivered his closing speech in the trial of 83-year-old Thomas Seed from Brora, known as Father Benedict when he taught at Fort Augustus Abbey boarding school in the 1970 and 1980s.
He told the jury that everyone would find the use of the cane and tawse (leather strap) as “abhorrent” now.
But he added: “We simply cannot judge this by the standards of today. What was reasonable chastisement in the 1970s is not compared to today.
“Teenage boys are hard work and there was a need for discipline and punishment. You have to translocate yourselves back in time and judge this by the standards of that era.”
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