A former pupil is suing Loretto for £1 million over the years of sadistic abuse he says he suffered at the elite Scottish boarding school.

Angus Bell has lifted his anonymity in the Herald on Sunday today to tell of the torment he says he endured, and his fight for justice.

His testimony is corroborated by a former Loretto teacher, David Stock. Stock became aware of abuse and says he told school authorities. After he informed school authorities, Stock claims his position became untenable and he had to resign and sign a non-disclosure agreement, he alleges.

Stock says: “If my warnings had been heeded then the abuse which boys like Angus suffered might never have happened.”

Bell’s lawyers say the legal action - thought to be the first of its kind against Loretto - could trigger a flood of other law suits. A spokesperson for the law firm Digby Brown said of Mr Bell: “His courage could be the very catalyst to herald a new wave of justice against yet another institution that failed the children it was responsible for.”

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has said that in the past Loretto pupils were “exposed to sexual, physical and emotional abuse”. 

Read More: 'I was a child in a madhouse of sexual abuse': Ex-Loretto pupil sues for £1 million

Mr Bell says he suffered years of pupil-on-pupil abuse, claimed older pupils subjected younger children to appalling acts of violence and humiliation, often sexual. He and other past pupils at Loretto from the 1990s and earlier decades claim discipline was outsourced by teaching staff to older pupils, resulting in nightmarish acts of cruelty. 

He claimed abuse was often linked to ‘the fagging system’, where younger students were effective servants - or ‘fags’ - for older pupils. The Herald on Sunday has previously ran a series of investigations detailing appalling acts of pupil-on-pupil abuse at boarding schools. The revelations were seen as a ‘Me Too’ moment for boarding school victims.

Mr Bell compared his time at Loretto in the 1990s to the novel The Lord of the Flies, where older children tormented younger children.

The Herald: Angus Bell as a Loretto pupil

He claimed: “I witnessed kids set on fire, their genitals mutilated from gang beatings with boots. Boys were raped with objects in front other boys. We were beaten with hockey sticks and cricket bats daily. Beds were urinated and defecated on by our tormentors.

“I was whipped with belt buckles, thrown down flights of stairs, waterboarded in dirty toilets, locked in trunks, strangled. Kids were hung out of windows, their heads beaten off the ground until they foamed at the mouth. We were crushed under furniture.

“Kids were shot the face with BB guns. Teeth were punched out. I was stabbed with compasses, fly-kicked in the stomach. Every day was a cross between The Purge and The Running Man. Children were abducted from their beds at night, stripped naked and tied to trees.

“Even now, decades later, remembering it can make me curl up and cry. We were sanctioned slaves for older pupils.”

Mr Bell now lives in Canada. He suffers from Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. “I was a child trapped in a madhouse of violence, and sexual and emotional abuse,” he said. “For eight years, I was driven to the brink of suicide. I thought about throwing myself out the window. I planned to hang myself and practised with belts.”

He added: “For me, we’re talking about thousands of assaults over more than 2000 days - it was eight years in Hell. You’d get less for murder.”

Older boys would masturbate in front of younger pupils, he said. Younger pupils were made to masturbate in front of older pupils.

Mr Bell claimed that some of the school authorities were fully aware of the abuse and violence that he and other children were suffering.

A spokesperson for Loretto said: “In light of the ongoing legal position and our responsibility of confidentiality to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry it is not appropriate for the School to provide any comment at this stage.”