AN 80-year-old man is the first person to be charged in connection with allegations of historic sexual and physical abuse at a former Catholic boarding school.
The man, from the east Highlands of Scotland, has been charged after police inquiries into reports of abuse at Fort Augustus Abbey in the Highlands.
A report has been submitted to the Crown Office and procurator fiscal.
Fort Augustus is one of two Catholic boarding schools in Scotland being investigated over allegations of abuse.
More than 20 people have come forward to say they were victims of abuse at Fort Augustus and Carlekemp, its feeder school in East Lothian, from the 1950s to the 1990s. Both schools are now closed.
One of Scotland's most senior Catholics, the Bishop of Aberdeen, Hugh Gilbert, apologised to former pupils during mass last month.
Leading experts and a child abuse victim praised his declaration that the allegations surrounding Fort Augustus Abbey in the Highlands had shamed the church.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article