A Mormon Bishop admitted using a belt to administer punishment beatings to young children when he gave evidence to a jury in Dundee on Friday.
Dennis Campbell said he could not remember exactly why he had punished the children but said it was likely to have been for “hyperactivity or lying”.
He said he had hit the children on a number of occasions but denied it was on a daily basis.
He branded one of his accusers “a compulsive liar”.
Campbell, formerly a prison nurse at Castle Huntly, and his wife Avril Campbell, a midwife, are alleged to have assaulted two children – a boy and a girl – around four decades ago.
‘It was all wrong’
Cambell told the jury at Dundee Sheriff Court he could remember using a belt to strike the boy and girl on their bare buttocks but said it was “very rare”.
He told the fourth day of the trial: “I heard it was on a daily basis and I don’t know if that was a lie or an exaggeration but it’s not true.
“We are going back 40 years.
“It certainly wouldn’t have been for rolling their eyes or stealing food.
“It was for hyperactivity or lying. I felt justified at the time.
“I know in today’s climate we are in a different world now.
“When I look back now it was all wrong.
“I think it was on the fleshy part of the buttocks.”
Contacted complainers to ‘apologise’
He admitted texting the female complainer, now 52, and telling her: “I did make a mess of it back then and I do hope the healing continues with you.”
He left a voicemail for the male complainer, also now 52, in which he called himself “a ghost from the past.”
He asked to meet and said: “I’m just doing a lot of reflection on my life.”
Campbell said: “I thought if I could have a meeting and say ‘if there’s anything I’ve done, can I apologise?’
“He said ‘you’re a good guy Dennis – it was Avril that was the tyrant’.
“He said I was the good guy and my wife was the baddie.
“I said: ‘If there’s anything I’ve done, can we not just put that in a concrete box and put a lid on it?'”
He told the court the day he was arrested was “the worst day of my life” and said he had been told that the criminal case had aged him and his wife.
Couple deny all charges
Dennis Campbell, 77, and his wife Avril, 74, are alleged to have attacked and neglected the children at addresses around Dundee and Angus between 1976 and 1990.
The jury have been told they were prone to bouts of “rage and anger” which led to attacks on children.
The trial has heard how the Bishop and his wife would subject children to “frenzied” beatings on a regular basis and would use a belt to administer punishment.
The female complainer told the court she would be told Avril Campbell was “an angel” and the couple were well-liked pillars of the community.
The other witness told the trial he had been lashed with the belt on an almost daily basis while he was staying with the pair.
He described how he was forced to eat whole bars of soap, made to stand outside in winter when he was naked and was kicked as he cowered on the floor.
He said: “Avril was pretty much the instigator in a lot of this.
“She would use Dennis, in essence, as an enforcer. I was in complete fear.”
The Campbells, of King Street, Broughty Ferry, deny the charges against them and the trial, before Sheriff Paul Brown, continues.
