Alex Renton attended three traditional private schools. When he was eight he left home and boarded at Ashdown House, a prep school in East Sussex; a feeder school to Eton College.

Within weeks of his arrival he was sexually abused by a teacher. The teacher was never charged or even sacked. He died in 2011, a free man.

The assault, compounded by the physical and emotional abuse so often a feature of boarding school life, has stayed with Alex. And like a great number of the million Britons alive today who attended these institutions, he spent the subsequent years trying to forget what had happened to him there.

Then, in 2014, Alex finally decided he had to face his demons. He wrote a book, Stiff Upper Lip, about public schools and about the experiences he and others had within them. That’s when the emails and letters started pouring in. Former pupils, men and women, from all around the country, shared with him their stories of sexual and physical abuse. The scale was breathtaking.

Now, years later, Alex Renton has unfinished business with Britain’s elite schooling system.

In the second of a three part series, Alex tracks how a prolific abuser was able to make his way through some of the UK's most elite schools - from Shrewsbury, to Bradfield and from Eton College to Fettes College in Edinburgh. Alex discovers that in the 1970s a number of paedophiles were operating at the same time in Fettes. One is still alive today.

Producer: Caitlin Smith
Researcher: Claire Harris
Sound Design: Jon Nicholls
Editors: Gail Champion and Heather Kane-Darling

Photo: Alex at eight years old Show less