Former school housemaster jailed for raping vulnerable children

A former housemaster at a residential school who assaulted and raped vulnerable children has been jailed for 10 years.

William Brydson, 78, was head of care at Monken Hadley - later known as Woodlands School - in Newton Stewart when he committed the offences during the 1970s and 1980s.

He was found guilty after trial of 12 charges including assault, indecent assault and rape.

At the High Court in Edinburgh Lady Poole commended victims who gave evidence against Brydson and said it had necessitated them reliving experiences "from a very dark part of their lives".

She told Brydson: "You have been convicted of multiple serious offences against vulnerable children who were in your care."

The judge said two of the victims were young girls when he started raping them and added: "They were scared of the violence you might inflict on them.

"What you did was an appalling breach of trust."

Brydson, formerly of Auldearn, near Nairn in the Highlands, committed the offences - which involved nine victims - between 1979 and 1986.

The court heard one boy, who was aged 10 when the abuse began, was repeatedly punched and kicked by the army veteran.

Another was shut in a cellar and left to sit naked on a stone step.

The former housemaster was previously jailed for two years in 2003 after physically abusing children at the school, although his sentence was cut to nine months on appeal.

Brydson was placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely following his sentencing.

Defence counsel Frances Connor told the court that any significant custodial sentence passed on Brydson would likely result in him dying in prison because of his health conditions, including heart problems.

She added that he had been given no training when he took up his post at the school and had been asked "to bring some discipline and order" to the establishment.

Connor also asked the judge to impose a sentence on him that would allow him "some sort of light at the end of the tunnel".