BishopAccountability.org

Fort Augustus Abbey trial – 'Priest beat me with spiked golf shoe'

By David Scott
Express
May 23, 2017

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/808364/fort-augustus-abbey-trial-catholic-boarding-school-priest-thomas-seed

Thomas Seed is accused of caning pupils' buttocks with a spiked golf shoe

One former pupil said bullying was common at Fort Augustus Abbey school

Sean Stone claimed Father Benedict beat him with a cane 'in a rage'

Two former pupils were giving evidence in the trial of 83-year-old Thomas Seed, also known as Father Benedict, and one told a jury that bullying was common at the Fort Augustus Abbey school on the shores of Loch Ness.

Tax inspector Sean Stone claimed the OAP beat him with a cane “in a rage”, until he was bleeding, after he retaliated against a school bully.

“I have a vivid memory of Father Benedict in his black cassock running towards me and striking me on the side of the head with his fist,” he said.

“Then, he took me by the scruff of the neck, bounced my head off the ground and punched me on the face. 

“His anger was severe, shouting at me in an uncontrolled rage.”

The 52-year-old added: “I didn’t think it was a caning. This was a beating. Sitting down was impossible and I spent two days off school at home lying face down.”

He was giving evidence in the second day of Seed’s trial at Inverness Sheriff Court.

The monk, from Brora in Sutherland, denies assaulting eight pupils over a 14-year period, using a tawse, a cane, a spiked golf shoe and a hockey stick, used to strike a pupil’s genitals. The incidents are alleged to have happened between June 1974 and July 1988, when Father Benedict was a chemistry teacher and headmaster at the facility.

Another former pupil, baker Clark Baxter from the Wish-aw area, claimed that Seed frequently belted and caned him in his four years at the school.

The 51-year-old said: “I would get caned on my bare bottom until I was bleeding.

“He had a spiked golf shoe and he used that on my bottom more than once.

“I didn’t feel there was anyone I could confide in. I didn’t want to tell my parents in case I let them down.” The trial continues.




.


Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.