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Perthshire school music instructor goes on trial accused of sexual assault

The trial is taking place at Falkirk Sheriff Court.
The trial is taking place at Falkirk Sheriff Court.

The trial has begun of a school music instructor accused of sexually assaulting young female pupils by “striking them on their buttocks with drumsticks”.

James Clark, 56, is said to have sexually assaulted eight teenage girls and one 11-year-old girl over a period of seven and a half years at the Perthshire school, which cannot be identified for legal reasons.

Clark is alleged to have struck three of the teenage girls on the buttocks with drumsticks, as well as touching their buttocks and cuddling them.

He faces nine charges of sexually assaulting girls at the school by touching their buttocks.

The alleged victims are said to have been aged between 11 and 18 at the time.

All the girls are said to have been assaulted at the school.

One of them is also said to have been sexually assaulted by Clark in Switzerland.

Bus journey charges

Another of the girls is also said to have been sexually assaulted in a vehicle on journeys within Perthshire and between Perthshire and Edinburgh.

In her case, Clark is said to have removed her clothing and bitten her mouth and neck, before carrying out a series of sexual acts, all when she was 16 to 18 years old.

A number of the girls are said to have been subjected to sexual remarks made by Clark towards 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.

Clark, of Ettrick Loan, Edinburgh, pleads not guilty to all the charges.

The jury of seven women and eight men were sworn in over a remote video link to a cinema in Dunfermline, before presiding Sheriff Alastair Brown at Falkirk Sheriff Court.

The trial is expected to last a week.