A “DANGEROUS” teacher who was obsessed with paedophiles pulled out clumps of his hair and banged his fists on a table until his knuckles bled, a hearing was told.
Brian Docherty is also accused of claiming his colleagues were in a religious cult before abandoning his job and fleeing to Ireland.
It has emerged outside the hearing that the teacher at Fraserburgh Academy, Aberdeenshire, has posted a series of bizarre YouTube videos in which he accuses police of hushing up child sex abuse.
Mr Docherty makes lurid and unsubstantiated claims that a neighbour was a paedophile and tried to buy ‘access’ to his autistic son for sex with a price tag of £25,000.
Mr Docherty, originally from Glasgow, was not present or represented at a hearing in Edinburgh this week of the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS).
Pauline Buchan, 49, deputy head at the school in 2014, gave tearful evidence by video link.
She said the additional support teacher explained in his interview for the job in December 2013 that he had been out of teaching for some time due to a brain injury which he had suffered.
She said: “I actually felt he was a very dangerous man. He seemed to be obsessed with paedophilia.
“He had always told me that he had made YouTube videos and said that he was being listened to by higher authorities than us.
“He accused the senior management team of being in a religious cult. He said it was like a secret society and he said that staff in the school would not be afforded opportunities in the school if they weren’t part of it.”
“I really don’t know where that came from. Some of us went to church, none of us went to the same church. It’s just a normal school.”
Mrs Buchan said she was warned by Dr Docherty that he would blame her if anything happened to his wife or unborn child, claiming she had failed to address the bullying he had suffered by other staff members.
She added: “He once went off on a rant about cults and paedophiles and then he started to tell me about different people he had written to about his concerns, like the Prime Minister.
“He would speak about people in the community who were paedophiles and that he was aware of children being lured to a caravan somewhere and killed.”
While describing an incident in her office in which Mr Docherty insisted he was being bullied and ‘isolated’ by staff members, Mrs Buchan became very upset.
“He became extremely angry when I described to him what I thought bullying was. He began pulling clumps of hair from his head.
“He banged both fists on my desk to the extent that both of his knuckles were bleeding.
“He became so aggressive in the last ten minutes that I was fearful of him.”
Mr Docherty was regularly absent from school, sometimes citing depression and anxiety, said Mrs Buchan.
She added that after the 2014 summer holidays he did not return. It then emerged that he had moved his family to Ireland.
Mr Buchan’s YouTube videos, dozens of which were uploaded in his own name in 2016, do not form a direct part of the GTCS against him.
He claims in his videos he travelled to Ireland to report to the government there the Police Scotland conspiracy he had uncovered. He felt it was unsafe to return to Scotland.
Appearing stern, articulate and confident in what he is saying, Mr Docherty looks directly at the camera as he claims it is unsafe for him to return to Scotland.
He says: “We reported our new neighbour to Police Scotland. This man had offered me £25,000 to have access to my disabled son. He made it very clear what he meant by ‘access’.”
“We stayed on in Ireland in order to contact the government safely and get away from threats and danger posed to our children from a paedophile ring.
“They were illegally entering our house in Fraserburgh and booby-trapping the children’s bunk-beds and the greenhouse in the backgarden which fell down on my daughter.”
He believed at that at this time Police Scotland were after him and his family for unveiling his paedophile neighbour, and used Irish police and eventually Interpol to chase him to Ireland.
Mr Docherty has not been in contact with the General Teaching Council for Scotland and has not admitted or denied any of the charges against him.
He is accused of, between January and October 2014, making unfounded and malicious comments that the senior leadership team at the school were part of a religious cult.
Another charge claims he caused other teachers distress by tearing clumps of hair from his head and banging his fists on a table and tearing his fingernails down a whiteboard.
He is also accused of failing to inform employers of his address changed when he moved his family to Ireland and being absent without authorisation.
The hearing continues.
