Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Catholic Fort Augustus, Highlands, Scotland, United Kingdom · 2020

Scotland: Fort Augustus monk convicted after extradition from Australia

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

Benedictine monk and teacher

Organization

Fort Augustus Abbey School

Spiritual nexus

Resident pupils under a monk-teacher's pastoral and disciplinary control at a monastic boarding school.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority
  • Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2020-01-01 · guilty plea after extradition; SCAI institutional findings

    Scottish courts; Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (Case Study 5). Denis Alexander ('Father Chrysostom'), a former Benedictine monk and teacher at Fort Augustus Abbey School, admitted two charges of indecent behaviour against boys in the 1970s after extradition from Australia in 2020 — a prosecution prompted by a BBC documentary. The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry separately found the school a site of repeated abuse.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • monk-teacher control over resident pupils

Primary record

Sources

official statutory inquiry report inquiry and conviction report Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, Case Study 5 (Fort Augustus), with Scotsman court reporting of the 2020 plea.

The inquiry's findings and the conviction after extradition.

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