An 87-year-old Catholic priest hasmade a second private appearance at Inverness Sheriff Court yesterday on historic sex abuse charges.
Father Robert Mackenzie faces a total of 18 charges alleged to have been committed in a North Berwick prep school and Fort Augustus Abbey between 1955 and 1988.
He was extradited from Canada last week. Mackenzie was fully committed and no motion was made for his release on bail.
He is accused of committing a series of offences over a period of 33 years between 1955 and 1988 while he was a teacher and priest in a preparatory school in North Berwick and Fort Augustus.
A total of 14 charges relate to his time at the abbey.
They involve alleged assaults with a ruler, a stick on the buttocks, a tawse, punching and kicking pupils, fondling young boys and having them perform sex acts on him as well as performing sex acts on the youths.
MacKenzie is originally from Edinburgh and was educated in Rome. He was a teacher and house master at Fort Augustus Abbey, which was run by Benedictine monks.
The Abbey closed as a school in 1993.
MacKenzie moved to Canada in 1988 and worked in Saskatchewan, which borders the US in west central Canada.
He served in the towns of Cupar, Dysart and Lipton and retired in 2002, though he continued to conduct mass.
