'His name is slime': Nicky Campbell lifts the lid on abuse from private school teacher he says is 'up there with Savile' ahead of Panorama documentary on his fight for justice

BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Nicky Campbell said that a paedophile teacher who allegedly preyed upon classmates at his school in Scotland is 'up there with Savile' 

Iain Wares, 83, has been accused of abusing dozens of boys in schools in Edinburgh in the 1960s and 1970s. His identity was revealed earlier this year following a legal challenge led by Associated Newspapers, the publishers of MailOnline, and the BBC.

Campbell claims to have witnessed the teacher, originally from South Africa, carrying out abuse against his classmates while he studied at Edinburgh Academy, a fee-paying school, as a young boy in the 1960s and 70s.

He says he saw Wares pulling down a fellow pupil's underwear and touching him inappropriately; he says the episode left him a 'physical island' who feared touch and compared Wares to the predatory Top of the Pops presenter. 

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry heard earlier this year that both Edinburgh Academy and Fettes College, where Wares went on to teach, were warned that he was allegedly a sexual predator - but did not escalate the matter with police.

Instead, after Wares was sacked from Fettes - Sir Tony Blair's former school - he reportedly left with glowing references and returned to his native South Africa, where he continued teaching for decades. 

He now faces a charge of historical indecent assault in Africa - and is fighting an extradition battle that could see him return to the UK on more than 80 historical abuse charges involving more than 40 alleged victims, some as young as nine. 

Speaking to The Times, Long Lost Family presenter Campbell, 62, said it was 'outrageous' that Wares had been able to continue teaching for so long.

The teacher will be the focus of an hour-look BBC Panorama special on November 30 featuring Campbell and other victims.

Ahead of the broadcast, Campbell said of Wares: 'His name is slime and now people will see it. People will see the outrage. It is a kind of justice.'

He has compared the teacher to prolific paedophile Jimmy Savile, who is believed to have abused hundreds of people, mostly children and mostly female, over decades.

Campbell added: 'Iain Wares is up there with Savile. We've done the maths. We've calculated it: his modus operandi, the number of people in the class, how frequently he did it.'

Wares originally travelled to Edinburgh from South Africa to seek psychological help for his sexual attraction to children, spending five years at Campbell's school of Edinburgh Academy.

But complaints led to him leaving in 1973 with a positive reference, and he was then hired by Fettes College. 

Fettes College has paid out over £1million in damages to three former pupils over allegations of Wares' sexual abuse.

The school told The Times in September: 'We have co-operated fully with all relevant authorities in any case of alleged non-recent abuse, and we offer a full and unreserved apology to those who suffered abuse while at Fettes College.'

As well as witnessing Wares' alleged changing room abuse, Campbell himself says he was also a victim of physical mistreatment at the hands of Hamish Dawson, another teacher at the academy who died in 2009.

He said Dawson called him to the front of the class and drew doodles on his inner thigh with felt-tip pens before escalating into more serious abuse.

He wrote about the experience in his memoir Blue-Eyed Son, and later approached the police about Wares' alleged changing room assault on his fellow pupil - but the victim did not want to take it further.

However, a programme made by journalist Alex Renton on abuse at Edinburgh Academy reignited his hunger for justice - and after the legal challenge unmasked Wares Campbell took to the airwaves to speak candidly about his experiences.

It prompted other alleged abuse survivors to come forward. 

Campbell then gave evidence to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry earlier this year, and alleged that Wares was 'one of the worst paedophiles' and one of the 'most prolific in British history'.

He told the inquiry how Wares leant over his classmate and began touching him, recalling: 'I remember Wares saying, ''It's a game, it's a game'', and my friend moving away.'

Other former pupils also gave evidence to the inquiry, alleging that Wares had sexually abused them. 

Edinburgh Academy has previously said it has no plans to contest any of the claims of abuse made by former pupils.

In a statement issued in August, the school said: 'Schools should be safe places for everyone and, at various points in our history, this was not the case for too many of our pupils.

'They were wronged by specific individuals whose roles were to educate, protect and nurture them. For this, the Edinburgh Academy unreservedly apologises.'

In March this year, lawyers acting for Wares said he would be unlikely to ever return to the UK to face trial.

His lawyer Ben Mathewson said his client had been advised the accusations against him in Britain were 'not extraditable'.

'He can never be prosecuted or ordered back to Britain,' insisted Mr Mathewson.

'One of the alleged incidences happened on a campus where he had never set foot.

'The alleged allegations against him happened when he was in his twenties. The UK has waited until he is in his eighties. It is difficult for one to recall what happened 60 years ago.'