FIFE SCHOOL’S FORMER HEAD TEACHER ADMITS SMACKING PUPILS BUT DENIES ASSAULT
A former head teacher at a Fife residential school told a jury he would smack pupils with a running shoe as punishment but denies assaulting them.Alexander Cameron, now 88, said he handed out corporal punishment to children while he was head teacher at Ovenstone School during the 1980s and 1990s.
He said he took over the duty as other teachers had been excessive in their punishments.
Cameron and fellow staff member Eric Simpson, 78, are on trial in connection with allegations of violent abuse from nine ex-pupils at the Pittenweem school.
"The school was a last resort for children from mainstream education who had been excluded from one of more mainstream schools." He said the previous head teacher and staff "certainly" practised corporal punishment and when he arrived he banned staff from doing so by asking them to refer cases directly to him.
"There were a couple of occasions where staff went against my ruling," he said.
"Ovenstone had a reputation for considerable punishment and to put it more widely, child abuse." Asked if he was the only person allowed to hit the children, he replied: "Correct, because I was aware staff had been employing punishment excessively." "I would give them either one – according to the severity of the offence – or two smacks on a clothed behind, with a witness." "I would ask the secretary to enter it in the log book." "I would strike them on the bottom.
I used moderate force." "I never injured a child.
I never left a child with bruising." "I considered it to be very reasonable, token force, I never hit the boys as hard as I could have done." "I gave them one slap each with a Slazenger gym shoe – I went running at lunchtimes – I took it and I gave them one or two; not with any enthusiasm, I was against that kind of thing."
