Teacher jailed for abuse of pupils at private schools

A teacher has been jailed for nine years for the sexual abuse of 11 boys over a 21-year period at private schools in Scotland

William Bain, 72, attacked the pupils, aged between 11 and 14, at schools in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dumbarton and at a flat in the grounds of one school.

The former physics teacher, from Crieff in Perthshire, admitted the attacks from 1978 to 1999, after his victims came forward following a previous conviction for similar offences.

Bain was previously jailed in 2016 for abusing five boys at a school in Dunbartonshire.

He was freed in 2020, but he was rearrested in 2022 after evidence was given at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry.

One of Bain's victims was aged just 12 when he began abusing the boy during detention sessions at a private school in Edinburgh in the late 1970s.

Another pupil was sexually abused while Bain helped him with his homework, later ordering the boy not to tell anyone about what had happened.

By the mid-1980s, Bain had relocated to Aberdeen, where he sexually assaulted an "isolated and homesick" boy who had moved to the school from England.

Bain, a housemaster at the school, invited the boy to his classroom where he abused him until the school bell rang.

Bain's next victims were at the boarding school in Dunbartonshire - the same school that led to his imprisonment in 2016.

One teenage boy was abused on three occasions in the physics teacher's laboratory "in view of other pupils".

Bain played off the abuse as "mere wrestling".

Another boy had been the victim of bullying and had described the school as a "brutal environment".

He was also attacked the lab as well as in a dark room at a photography club the teacher ran, during rugby training sessions and on hill walking trips.

Other incidents occurred in the physics lab, dark room and in Bain's private flat in the grounds of the school, which "a number of pupils" were given access to.

One teenager was attacked there while a film was being shown and a further attack occurred while this boy was using a computer at the flat.

Another victim described feeling "uncomfortable" as the teacher stood watching him and others pupils as they showered.

Bain's lawyer, Brian McConnachie KC, said he had accepted his offending had been "out of control" about the time of the millennium.

Sentencing, Lord Young said he had read a number of victim impact statements describing the "terrible legacy" left by Bain's abuse.

The judge said the then boys were left feeling "alone and lost" and thought they would not be believed had they spoke out at the time.

Lord Young said: "These children were entrusted by their parents to the schools. They ought to have been nurtured and educated in a safe environment.

"Instead, it seems that throughout your career as a teacher, you abused this position to pursue your own sexual deviances."

His sentence was cut from 10 years due to the guilty pleas.

Det Sgt Alan Macdougall described Bain as a "prolific sexual predator".

DS Macdougall said: "Bain used his position of power to inflict pain and harm on his young victims.

"The scale of his offending is horrendous. "