Brora's Father Seed denies assault charges on boys aged 11-18
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PUPILS at the former Fort Augustus Abbey School were beaten by one of their teachers with a spiked golf shoe, cane, a hockey stick and a cane it is alleged.
And it is also claimed 83-year-old Thomas Seed beat one of the boys on his bare buttocks with a cane and kicked another pupil, causing one of them to fall down a flight of stairs.
Seed will go on trial next January facing allegations of assaults on eight pupils, all boys, aged between 11 and 18 years.
The offences are alleged to have taken place at the school on the shores of Loch Ness over a 14-year period between 1974 and 1988.
Seed, who now lives at North Brora Muir, Brora, appeared personally at Inverness Sheriff Court today to deny all the charges on the indictment.
Depute fiscal Roderick Urquhart told Sheriff Margaret Neilson one of the witnesses now resides in Hong Kong and the Crown would require to set up a direct video link to hear his evidence during the trial.
On one occasion between August 1977 and July 1978 at the school, Seed is alleged to have assaulted one pupil aged between 12 and 13 by taking hold of him, pulling him from another pupil and throwing him to the ground and repeatedly striking him on the back of the head, marching him to his office where he shouted and screamed at him and told another pupil to hold the boy down over a desk as he repeatedly struck him with a cane.
Another pupil was allegedly told to remove his clothing to his underpants and he was repeatedly struck with a belt and spike golf shoe all to his injury.
The charges also alleged one boy aged between 14 and 15 was dragged from his bed by Seed and taken into his study where he was struck on his hands and wrists with a tawse.
Seed also denies assaulting a pupil, then aged 14 to 18, between 1980 and 1983 by striking him on the hands with a ruler and his bare buttocks with a cane.
One pupil it is alleged was pulled from his bed, kicked on the head and body and genitals with a hockey stick while another boy was allegedly repeatedly kicked causing him to fall down a flight of stairs at the school between 1974 and 1976.
Seed will appear again in court for an intermediate diet on November 22 and the trial has been fixed for January 23, 2017.
