A MAN has told how he was regularly beaten and other children sexually abused during his time as a pupil at a former approved school.

The man, from South Shields, said staff at Stanhope Castle approved school had “carte blanche to do whatever they wanted” to boys.

He alleges that he was beaten with a walking stick, damaging his spine, and also burst an eardrum after he was repeatedly hit and left bloodied.

He also said sex acts took place on pupils in the showers at the school, a Home Office approved facility which opened during the Second World War and closed in 1981.

In June The Northern Echo revealed that Durham Police was investigating three separate reports from former pupils alleging they were victims of sexual assaults.

That investigation is separate to these fresh allegations.

The man, who has been in touch with police, spent six years at Stanhope following his arrest for stealing a pushbike.

He said: “The beatings started on the first day I was there. You were beaten for any reason at all, you hadn’t combed your hair or you had wet the bed.

“I subsequently spent time in the Army and what was dished out to me as a boy was never dished out to me as a soldier.

“Nothing good ever happened there for me, but others suffered much worse.”

He added: “The brutality, it was terrifying. You were battered from pillar to post."

“ I got caned with a walking stick with a big wooden knob on it and had my eardrum bust when I was hit hard over and over again.

“The staff had carte blanche to do whatever they wanted to the boys.”

The man said he told his parents of the abuse, but no action was taken. Asked why he hadn’t reported his allegations before now, he said: “I have spent most of my life abroad, when I have been happy.

“But for the past five years I have been living on my own in a flat. It gives you time to think. It is then that the memories, the flashbacks occur.

“I am riddled with arthritis and registered disabled so my options are limited now in terms of where I can go and what I can do. I don’t think I have much longer left and just want other people to know what happened.”

Last month Durham Police said their investigation was at a “relatively early stage”.