// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
Ex-PE teacher who hit children with golf balls ordered to do unpaid work
Michael Neil abused children at Kerelaw residential school in the 1990s and early 2000s
A former PE teacher has been ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work for violent attacks on teenage pupils at a scandal-hit residential school in North Ayrshire.
Michael Neil, 72, locked children in the gym hall and struck them with golf balls at the now-closed Kerelaw in Stevenston between 1991 and 2003.
The ex-footballer, who played for Arbroath and Clyde, carried out so many attacks on pupils that a jury heard he could not even remember them.
At sentencing, Sheriff Eoin McGinty said Neil's pupils had experienced "fear, humiliation and physical harm" - but he decided against a jail sentence for reasons including Neil's "advanced years".
He is the latest former staff member to be convicted of offences at the school and will be supervised for two years.
In 2024, Police Scotland declared a "critical incident" over the scale of its investigation into historical abuse allegations at Kerelaw.
Neil, from Kilmarnock, was convicted of five offences against pupils aged between 13 and 17.
A jury acquitted him of 11 other charges of assault.
The offences took place at Kerelaw, a List D school near Stevenston that closed amid allegations of abuse in 2006.