Nicky Campbell Testifies About Mother's Hesitation to Report School Assault

Nicky Campbell told Edinburgh Sheriff Court that his mother did not report the alleged assault he suffered at the hands of his teacher as a schoolboy because doing so would have been the ‘nuclear option’.

Campbell was giving evidence at a hearing into allegations against two retired teachers from Edinburgh Academy, where he was a day pupil. Colin Turner and David Bourne, who are in their 90s and 80s respectively, have both been assessed as unfit to stand trial and were not present at the court. They will not face punishment regardless of the verdict.

Campbell, 65, previously described an alleged unprovoked attack by Turner when he was 14 or 15, during which he said he was beaten and ‘ragdolled’. When asked by Turner’s defense counsel, Iain Smith, why his mother, ‘a trained social worker,’ had not reported the incident to the police, Campbell explained the context of the time.

‘In Edinburgh in the 1970s, that would have been the nuclear option,’ Campbell stated. ‘When reports were made to schools about abuse by teachers, as we now know, it was covered up, the teachers were protected and the schools turned on the accusers. I was well aware of the sacrifices my parents made to send me to that school and if my mum had gone to the police, it would all have been for nothing.’

Campbell spoke of his pride in his adoptive parents, noting that his father, who tended to avoid confrontation due to wartime experiences, had deferred to his mother. His mother had contacted the school after he returned home distressed and dishevelled. As a result, Turner was disciplined by the school and compelled to apologize to Campbell’s mother. Campbell believes this was the first time a teacher at the school had been forced to apologize to a parent.

Campbell added that in recent years, after discussing childhood abuse on radio and television, he realized his parents would have been proud of him for speaking out. He also mentioned his efforts with other former pupils to extradite a former teacher, Iain Wares, from South Africa to face trial for numerous sex offenses.

When questioned about a 2002 book in which he discussed abuse at the school but did not mention the incident with Turner, Campbell stated that the focus was elsewhere, and including another case could have been ‘overkill.’ He acknowledged that while Turner’s violent outburst was deeply traumatic, other forms of abuse, such as sexual fondling by another teacher, Hamish Dawson, were also profoundly damaging.

Campbell expressed that he was glad Turner was not present and not having to endure a trial as an elderly man, and that his family was spared that ordeal. He stated, ‘If he had written to me at any time in the last 50 years to say sorry, to admit he lost it that would have meant so much.’

When Smith suggested his client admitted only to pushing and shoving, Campbell replied, ‘If he had just pushed me and pulled me, we wouldn’t be here.’ The case is ongoing.