Three former Edinburgh Academy teachers stand trial over historic abuse claims
Pupils 'punched and hit with dusters', trial hears
Three former teachers at a prestigious Edinburgh school are standing trial accused of historic assaults on pupils.
Geoffrey Blair, Anthony Dyer and Norman Jack are all alleged to have carried out physical attacks on children while they taught at the Edinburgh Academy on various occasions between 1969 and 1990.
Blair, 75, is claimed to have assaulted pupils aged between 11 and 14-years-old by seizing them by the hair, hitting them to the head with a duster and punishing one by striking him to the buttocks with a rugby boot.
The alleged assaults by Blair, who taught Classics, are said to have taken place within the private school between September 1979 and July 1982.
Dyer, 85, is facing allegations involving eight complainers aged between eight and 11 and is said to have assaulted the children by kicking to the buttocks and striking them with a gym shoe.
Dyer, a former PE teacher, is also alleged to have assaulted a young child by placing his head in a locker and kicking him to the buttocks.
All the allegations involving Dyer are said to have occurred at the capital school between September 1968 and June 1990.
85-year-old Jack is accused of assaulting children by punching one to the body, striking a second with a pool cue and hitting another causing his head to strike a table.
Further allegations state he placed one boy over his knee and struck him to the buttocks with a slipper and pulled another lad into a shower block, removed his lower clothing and struck him to the buttocks.
Jack, who also taught Languages, is alleged to have committed the offences within the school between August 1969 and August 1983.
The three accused, all from Edinburgh, are currently standing trial at the city’s sheriff court with the hearing expected to last around four weeks.
The Edinburgh Academy is a private day school opened in 1824 with current annual tuition fees ranging from £14,247 to £22,990 depending on the child’s age.
Former pupils include author Robert Louise Stevenson, journalist Magnus Magnusson, broadcaster Nicky Campbell and former Scotland rugby captain Mike Blair.
The trial has heard from a series of witnesses who said they attended the Edinburgh Academy school as children and claim the three accused men assaulted them and other pupils.
One witness, now in his 60s, told the trial he was a boarder pupil at the school between 1968 and 1976.
He described one incident where he claimed his assistant house tutor Norman Jack had assaulted him after he had been cheeky during class.
The man said: “He punched me on my chest and knocked me off my feet. It was enough to force me to the ground.
“When I was lying in the ground he shouted at me to get up and be quiet.”
The man said he was left “surprised and frightened” by the incident but had not suffered any injury.
He told the jury he did not report the incident at the time and only spoke about it when he was contacted by the police in 2024.
A second witness told the court he had been a pupil at the school between 1976 and 1989 and described Anthony Dyer as “bad-tempered”.
He said Dyer would regularly kick pupils to the buttocks and described one occasion where he claimed the teacher had assaulted him after he was late for class.
The man, who is now in his mid 50s, said he found the incident to be “very traumatic” for him.
He also described an incident where his form tutor Jack punished children by putting “us over his knee and struck us with a slipper”.
He said: “It was pretty bad, he wasn’t holding back. It was really painful.”
A third witness, in his late 50s, told the jury he attended the school between 1978 and 1984 where Geoffrey Blair had been his form tutor.
The man said he had suffered a serious back injury playing rugby at the school but had not received medical treatment for three months.
He said on one occasion Blair had punished him by striking him to the buttocks despite knowing about his injury.
He said the teacher assaulted him and other children in his class by striking them to the head by throwing a wooden duster at them.
He said: “He would launch it at you. He would chuck it as hard as he could.”
The trial in front of Sheriff Matthew Auchincloss continues.