A Catholic priest who taught in a prestigious private school was yesterday found guilty of assaulting one of the pupils by belting him until his wrists bled.
Father Benedict Seed had faced six charges from different pupils, all within his care at Fort Augustus Abbey boarding school in the 1970s and 1980s.
Yesterday, a jury at Inverness Sheriff Court found him guilty of the attack on Paul Curran – now a wealthy Hong Kong businessman, but a teenage schoolboy at the time.
Seed, whose real first name is Thomas, was fined £1,000. The five other charges were found not proven.
Yesterday outside the court, referring to the not proven charges, he said: “These boys must have felt very hurt to say those things. It was a long time ago. This was not really about corporal punishment, this was about me being too strict. I am sorry, I never meant to hurt anyone.”
But the 83-year-old, from Brora, added: “I pled not guilty and I still stand by that.”
Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood was told by defence counsel John Campbell QC that Seed, who took a vow of poverty, had accumulated £50,000 in shares.
Fining the monk £1,000, the Sheriff said: “I am obliged to deal with you by the law that applied when the offence was committed. You were in a position of trust and you abused that.”
Paul Curran, a 50 year old merchant who flew in from the former British colony for the trial, told the jury that he dreamt of being “hunted” by Seed for the five years he attended the Abbey.
He said he was belted with a leather tawse which left his hands and wrists bleeding, swollen and bruised after being caught swearing by the monk.
Mr Curran said that he had been belted many times at the school but this particular incident was “excessive.”
Seed was found guilty of assaulting Mr Curran to his injury between Sept 7, 1980, and September, 1982, by dragging him from his bed into his study and repeatedly striking him on his hands and wrists with a tawse.
Mr Curran told fiscal depute Roderick Urquhart that corporal punishment was used at the Abbey “extensively.
“He dragged me into his study and said he was going to belt me. My wrists started to bleed. He was in a fit of rage.
“There were more than six strokes on each hand. I kept pulling my hands away and he was getting angrier and angrier.”
He said he had to have his hands bandaged by the school matron afterwards.
Asked for his reaction to his conviction, he said: “I don’t know how I feel. It is too soon.”
Asked how it will affect his future as a priest, he said: “I am retired now so it does not affect me, but I will not be held in such high regard now.”
