A SENIOR teacher at a Church of Scotland residential school has been suspended from his post after being accused of abusing pupils at another school run by monks.

Gregor Dougal, the deputy head at Ballikinrain residential school in Balfron, was suspended following allegations that he beat pupils when he was a teacher at St Ninian's List D school in Gartmore, Stirlingshire, more than 20 years ago.

Cameron Fyfe, the lawyer representing former pupils at the school, said 180 men, mainly in their forties and fifties, had contacted him to claim they suffered physical or sexual abuse at the school in the 1960s and 1970s.

The number of men abused while at St Ninian's, which was run by the De La Salle Brothers, a Catholic teaching order, could reach 300. Mr Dougal, married with two grown-up children, was named alongside the De La Salle monks, care workers, and other teachers in a civil action lodged at the Court of Session by Chris Ferns, alleging abuse and neglect in the mid-1970s.