BBC presenter Nicky Campbell has given an emotional interview revealing he was the victim of physical and sexual abuse as a young schoolboy at a Scottish private school during the 1970s.
The broadcaster, 61, described how, aged 12, his history teacher ‘put me – and others – over his knee in mirthful moments where, behind the laughter of the class, he’d tickle, his fingers wandering over my genitals’.
The longtime BBC 5 Live Breakfast host – whose voice regularly broke as he recounted his experiences on his podcast – said the abuse he suffered and witnessed at Edinburgh Academy ‘had a profound effect on my life’.
The teacher, who he named as Hamish Dawson is now dead, he said.
Campbell also described witnessing numerous other instances of abuse including in 1971 when, aged 10, he saw a PE teacher set upon a young pupil in the showers – something the offender ‘was known for’ among students.
‘My friend is laughing but I know from the fear in it that it’s not a good laugh,’ Campbell recounted. ‘The teacher has both hands on my friend’s penis and is masturbating him. When we walk to the bus stop we don’t even talk about it and we’d never tell.’
The teacher in question has more than 20 child abuse allegations to his name under the ongoing Scottish Child Abuse Enquiry, Campbell, 61, wrote in the Mirror. He is now married and living abroad and, so proving difficult to extradite, he claimed.
Referred to as ‘Edgar’, the man believed to have molested dozens of young boys at several schools in Edinburgh and his native South Africa. He true identity has not been revealed for legal reasons.
‘We just accepted it because if he is doing it then it can’t be that wrong can it? And at least he wasn’t doing it while in one of his violent rages,’ Campbell wrote.
Broadcaster Nicky Campbell has revealed how as a young schoolboy he watched one of his classmates being sexually abused by a teacher and opened up about physical beatings he endured at the hands of staff
Campbell as a schoolboy at Edinburgh Academy, where he alleges the physical and sexual abuse happened
Nicky as a young schoolboy with his sister Fiona in 1966. The family lived in Edinburgh
A paedophile school teacher allegedly molested dozens of school boys at Edinburgh Academy (pictured) in the 70s
Campbell, who was born in the Scottish capital and attended Edinburgh Academy before going on to study at the University of Aberdeen, also shared his memories of being physically beaten by teachers.
‘I was badly beaten up at school by a teacher who was a leading light in the scripture union,’ he told BBC 5 Live.
‘My mother took it as far as she could and got a grovelling apology from (the man involved), but was essentially stonewalled and it was hushed up by the school.
‘Those were different times and that has stayed with me all my life.’
Campbell also discussed witnessing more serious sexual abuse, allegedly enacted on his school-mates at the hands of another man at the institution.
‘I cannot describe it here and I can never un-see it,’ he will tell 5 Live.
‘This man was known to us all as a predator and a sadist but we never told anyone.
‘My school friends and I talk about it now with each other with again – contempt, disbelief and incomprehension that sort of thing happened in plain sight and nothing was done.
‘And why didn’t we as little boys tell anyone in power what was happening? I don’t know.’
The broadcaster said witnessing incidents of both sexual and physical abuse at the Edinburgh Academy had had a ‘profound effect on my life’.
Campbell, recounting the alleged abuse he saw in a changing room shower, said: ‘I cannot describe it here and I can never un-see it.
‘This man was known to us all as a predator and a sadist but we never told anyone.
‘My school friends and I talk about it now with each other with again – contempt, disbelief and incomprehension that sort of thing happened in plain sight and nothing was done.
‘And why didn’t we as little boys tell anyone in power what was happening? I don’t know.’
Campbell, who worked with journalist and child sex abuse victim Alex Renton to tell his story, said the alleged abuser is still alive, but has not been named for legal reasons.
Speaking on his own podcast Campbell says the reason he has chosen to come forward is to bring the man to justice.
In a statement provided to the BBC, Edinburgh Academy said it ‘deeply regrets’ the alleged incidents and ‘wholeheartedly’ apologised to those involved.
‘We have worked closely with the relevant authorities including Police Scotland with their inquiries and would like to provide reassurance that things have dramatically changed since the 1970s,’ the statement read.
‘The Academy has robust measures in place to safeguard children at the school with child protection training now core to the ethos of the Academy.’
David Price outside the retirement home in the Cape Town suburb of Rondebosch called Avondrust Court
Class photo: Rachel Johnson and David Price, circled
Last June, the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) announced that schools across Britain must ‘assume’ sexual abuse of pupils by staff is taking place after a spate of revelations were made about the abhorrent abuse of minors.
It came as another teacher from South Africa who taught at schools in southern England between 1970s-1990s was accused of several incidents of sexual assault on pupils.
David Price is alleged to have sexually abused ten boys between 1970 and 1990, with 33 charges relating to Ashdown House School in East Sussex when Prime Minister Boris Johnson was a pupil there.
The British authorities requested he be returned to the UK to face justice in November 2018.
But the former teacher’s lawyers are claiming Brexit means there is no extradition agreement between the two countries.
Price taught history, geography and sport at Ashdown from 1970 until the 1980s.
Mr Johnson was a pupil there from 1975 to 1977. There is no suggestion he is among the alleged victims. His sister Rachel was the first girl boarder at the school in 1976. She said: ‘In those days, the three Cs – the cane, cricket and classics – were fetishistically followed.’
Price subsequently worked at Brockhurst School in Berkshire during the 1980s and 1990s, where he faces another nine charges. All the alleged offences involve sexual touching and performing sex acts on children or having them perform sex acts on him.
He later moved to his native South Africa where he taught at a school for the deaf for a decade until his retirement. During that time one of his pupils nominated him for Woolworths Teacher of the Year, a national award that he went on to win.
After a year in retirement he became bored and found a job tutoring children privately until his arrest in November 2019 following an application by the British government.
Different With Nicky Campbell is available on BBC Sounds.
The Prime Minister in his schooldays at Ashdown House