Former pupil who won payout after horrific private school abuse says it was 'worse than Lord of the Flies'

A former pupil at one of Scotland’s most prestigious boarding schools has branded it as ‘worse than Lord of the Flies’ after suffering years of horrific abuse.Angus Bell said ‘daily cruelty, sadism and violence’ were meted out by pupils to their classmates at Loretto School in the 1990s.He became a key whistleblower at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI) seven years ago, raising the alarm over the culture of abuse at the school in Musselburgh, East Lothian, where fees are around £51,000 a year for senior boarders.Its alumni include ex-Chancellors Alistair Darling and Norman Lamont, broadcaster Andrew Marr, F1 legend Jim Clark and ex-Nationalist MSP Fergus Ewing.During Mr Bell’s time at Loretto, from the age of 10 to 18, Mr Bell said older boys ran it ‘in all but name and subjected children to daily acts of physical, psychological and sexual abuse’.He said that in junior school, phone calls and visits were banned. Mr Bell, 45, who said Loretto had never contacted him to apologise, told the Mail: ‘We were living in this madhouse.‘It was worse than Lord of the Flies, and people broke down.’He said the school was a ‘prison’ and pupils were ‘like child soldiers in training for an Empire that no longer exists’. Angus Bell endured ‘daily cruelty, sadism and violence’ while at Loretto School in the 1990s Loretto School alumni include ex-Chancellors Alistair Darling and Norman Lamont, broadcaster Andrew Marr, F1 legend Jim Clark and ex-Nationalist MSP Fergus EwingHe added: ‘Literally, your objective in the first two years of that senior school was to survive never- ending beatings. You had two jobs – get beaten up and be slaves for the older pupils.’He said they developed games of torture, locking younger boys in trunks and launching them downstairs, hanging them out of third-floor windows in duvet covers, waterboarding them in toilets, and subjecting them to beatings with hockey sticks and cricket bats.Dorms turned into ‘fight clubs’ and children were set on fire, held at gunpoint with ball bearing guns and shot, abducted from bed in the middle of the night on birthdays and pushed into cold baths or strapped naked to trees.Children were subjected to an exhausting 90-hour week and handed pre-dawn corporal punishments conducted by prefects, often involving press-ups in the sea until vomiting.Father-of-three Mr Bell launched a landmark legal case against the school, and became the first person to successfully sue for damages.After more than four years of legal action, he accepted a six-figure settlement just weeks before trial, and is now free to speak out.SCAI chairman Lady Smith found that children were abused while in Loretto’s care and criticised failures in oversight.Mr Bell said paedophiles operated for decades and were given glowing references to work elsewhere. Mr Bell, who now lives in Canada, is coming to the UK for the launch of his book, The Lost BoysHe said he was ‘assaulted thousands of times over 2,000 days, was hospitalised from assaults, and was thrown downstairs’.Mr Bell said: ‘I saw people set on fire; I saw people locked in trunks and shoved downstairs.‘I was tied up in duvet covers, beaten with hockey sticks and threatened with being hung out of third-floor windows.‘People were hung out of third-floor windows by their ankles.‘We were held at gunpoint with a ball-bearing gun for an hour until someone was shot in the face.’As a result of his time at the school, Mr Bell has suffered more than 30 years of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorder, and depression disorder. He now lives in Canada with his wife Candy and three sons aged 12, 15 and 17, having retrained as a carpenter.He is coming to the UK for the launch of his book, The Lost Boys, coinciding with Loretto’s 200th anniversary.School head Pete Richardson said: ‘Loretto recognises the suffering caused by the historic abuse at the school and has committed to learning from the past to create a safe, supportive learning environment where student wellbeing is the highest priority.‘Loretto continues to support the work of the SCAI and has made an unreserved apology for past wrongdoings. Our sympathies lie with all victims of abuse.’The Lost Boys by Angus Bell, published by Darius Publishing, is available on Amazon for £9.99.