A former member of a pupils’ pipe band told a court a teacher had “regularly” struck her on her bottom with drumsticks and his hands at a Perthshire school.
The ex-pupil said she had been bullied throughout the time at the school, and the teacher, James Clark, a music instructor, had been her “support”.
She told a jury she had been left feeling violated.
The former pupil said Clark attended uniform fittings with her and during one, she said Clark had “smacked” her bottom.
She said he had also “regularly” struck her on the bottom with his hands and drumsticks in the school.
She said: “It was any time I saw him, every time I was in a practice, whenever we were alone.”
She said the incident at the fitting, when she was 13 or 14, had “actually marked” her.
Giving evidence over a video link, she said: “I explained to him there was a mark left there and he laughed it off as if it didn’t matter.
“It happened quite a lot. It was a regular thing.
Asked if she had consented, she said: “Definitely not.”
She said another incident had left her feeling: “Violated. Disgusted.”
She said that during a trip to Switzerland, Clark “smacked me on the bum pretty much all the time”.
She said she had “a close friendship” with him at the time and had only spoken to the police about what happened after officers contacted her in 2019, by which time she had left school and was in further education.
Asked why she had not reported it before, she said: “He’d been such a good support to me over the years I didn’t think anything of it.”
Defence counsel Sarah Livingstone told the witness that Clark “denies that things were as you say they were”.
The charges
Clark, 56, of Etrick Loan, Edinburgh whom the court heard was known as “Drummie”, pleads not guilty to a total of nine charges of sexually assaulting girls aged between 11 and 18 at the school, which cannot be identified for legal reasons, by touching their buttocks.
He is alleged to have struck three of the girls on the buttocks with drumsticks.
Another of the girls is also said to have been sexually assaulted in a vehicle on journeys within Perthshire and between Perthshire and Edinburgh.
Clark is said to have removed her clothing and bitten her mouth and neck and before carrying out a series of sexual acts, all when she was 16 to 18 years old.
In her case, he has lodged a notice of special defence, alleging any sexual activity between him and her was with her consent.
A number of the girls are said to have been subjected to sexual remarks made by Clark to them without their consent, for the purposes of him obtaining sexual gratification, or of humiliating, distressing or alarming them.
Clark also faces nine alternative charges, alleging that while the girls were pupils and he was an adult looking after them, he engaged in sexual activity with them or directed at them.
The alleged offences are said to have spanned a period from August 2011 to mid-February 2019.
The trial, before Sheriff Alastair Brown and jury, is expected to last a week.
