A MAN has been charged with alleged historic sexual abuse and violence against children as young as eight in Fairlie and Inverclyde.

Eric McBay, 76, is accused of targeting four youngsters at the former Southannan School in Fairlie and at Quarriers Village near Kilmacolm between 1973 and 1989.

Prosecutors claim that he indecently assaulted a girl on various occasions at Quarriers when she was aged 14 and 15 between February 1973 and November 1974.

He is further charged with touching a boy's private parts, bathing him, taking him to sleep at his home and uttering a sexual remark to him.

The Crown says McBay committed these alleged lewd, indecent and libidinous offences between November 1984 and January 1989, when the child was aged between eight and 12.

McBay is also accused of forcing another boy to the floor, punching and kicking him, forcing his arm up his back and causing him pain and injury.

He is said to have assaulted the child on various occasions between January 1982 and March 1985 when the alleged victim was aged between nine and 12.

Prosecutors say McBay stripped another boy, aged between eight and ten, and whipped him with wet towels on various occasions between October 1973 and March 1975.

McBay, whose address was not given in court, made no plea during an undertaking petition hearing which was held in private at Greenock Sheriff Court.

He has been allowed bail and a date for the next calling of the case is to be confirmed. 

Southannan, run by the Quarriers charity, opened in Fairlie in 1978 as a residential school, providing more specialised education and care to children who were not considered to be adequately catered for in the mainstream education and care systems.

Education provision at Southannan was moved to Seafield School in Ardrossan in 1996; the school closed in 2014.