SENTENCING STATEMENTS

Lady Poole made the following comments in court:

“William Brydson, on 4 December 2025, you were convicted by the jury at the High Court in Kilmarnock of a succession of serious crimes of physical and sexual abuse.

The twelve charges of which you were convicted occurred between 1979 and 1986, when you were housemaster then head of care at a residential school for children, called Monken Hadley then Woodlands. For various reasons, the pupils tended to have had difficulties in their lives. Instead of nurturing children in your care, the jury by its verdict found that your regime was one of unacceptable brutality. You also abused your position of trust repeatedly to rape and indecently assault teenage girls, and to indecently assault a young boy.

Looking first at the physical abuse, you were convicted of assault to injury of four victims, during a total period of 5 ½ years.  You shouted and swore at children and made derogatory remarks to them. You punched, kicked, grabbed, dragged along by the hair, struck, seized by the neck, pushed, and stamped on children in your care. You indulged in cruel punishments such as forcing the face of one into a urine-soaked bed, making another stand in a dark cellar at night for a prolonged period, sit partially unclothed on cold steps for lengthy periods, participate in boxing matches with other pupils, and forced one child to eat food even when they had already regurgitated it.

Turning to the sexual abuse, you sexually abused six different victims. You indecently assaulted one boy in your care, by watching him in the shower and flicking his buttocks painfully with a towel. You indecently assaulted females, doing things such as putting your hands down the trousers of one, and pushing another against a cupboard and ejaculating on her. Other activities in which you engaged included getting female victims to touch your penis, you touching their intimate parts including penetrating them with your fingers, and making two of them perform oral sex on you. Three of these females were children in your care. You were also found guilty of raping two of your victims. You raped two female pupils at the school repeatedly over a period totalling approximately 17 months. They were vulnerable teenage girls, underage for much of the periods you abused them. They were scared of the violence you might inflict on them, and had nobody to turn to who would believe them about the things the jury found you did to them. What you did was an appalling breach of trust. 

Coming forward to give evidence was difficult for all nine victims from whom the court heard, as well as other witnesses. They are to be commended for their bravery in doing so. Giving evidence was not an easy task for many of them, necessitating them reliving experiences from a very dark part of their lives. The victim impact statements available to the court speak eloquently of the long term consequences for victims of being subjected to this type of abuse.  

I have taken into account everything said on your behalf in mitigation. You are a 78-year-old man, with your own vulnerabilities and health issues. You are a carer for your present partner. At the time of the offences, you were working in a difficult job, without a care background or training. You have led a life in which in the past you served your country in the army, and you were in employment for most of your working life. Apart from your time at the school involved in this case, you appear to have led a pro-social life. You have not been convicted of offences other than those relating to your time at the school involved in this case. However, you have a previous conviction after pleading guilty to physical abuse of children at the same school in 2002, in a case in which there were initially 12 complainers, one of whom was also a complainer in this case. You were imprisoned for a sentence of 9 months in respect of these offences.   

I have also taken into account the Criminal Justice Social Work report with a Risk Assessment that I ordered.  The assessor suggests that your current age, stable lifestyle and long period since offending have a bearing on the level of risk you pose, which is lower than it would otherwise have been. 

Nevertheless, you have been convicted of multiple serious offences against vulnerable children who were in your care. Offences of this nature deserve a significant custodial sentence, to express society’s disapproval of this type of behaviour, and punish you. In setting the length of that sentence, I have taken into account among other things that you have already served a sentence of nine months imprisonment for physical abuse of some children in your care, during the time period covered by the current case. I have also taken into account the length of time these cases have taken to come to trial, the low risk you are found to pose, the largely pro-social life you have led, and your age. A determinate sentence is appropriate. 

I sentence you to a cumulo determinate sentence of ten years imprisonment. Your sentence is backdated to 4 December 2025 when you were first remanded in custody. 

Had I been sentencing for each charge alone, I would have imposed the following sentences of imprisonment.  In respect of the physical abuse, I would have imposed 1 year each on charges 1 and 5, and 9 months each on charges 8 and 11 of the record indictment.  In respect of the indecent assaults and rape charges, I would have imposed 9 months on charge 4, 7 years in cumulo on charges 9 and 10, 9 months on charge 13, 7 years in cumulo on charges 14 and 15, and admonished you on charge 16, all references to numbering in the record indictment.  However the total of these periods would be too long to serve the interests of justice, which is why I have instead imposed a ten year cumulo determinate sentence. 

In the light of the sentence I have imposed, you will be on the sex offenders register for an indefinite period.”

21 January 2026