Inquiry into 'school abuse'

Cabin Hill is the prep school for Campbell College

A formal inquiry is to be held into a County Down fee-paying school's handling of child abuse allegations, the Department of Education has announced.

Cabin Hill Preparatory School, near Holywood, had been accused by a parent of not acting properly when it discovered that a pupil was involved in abuse of other pupils in the late 1990s.

The Department said on Monday that the inquiry would not begin until a civil action case was completed.

The school said in a statement that it was "confident it will be exonerated" by the inquiry.

Human Rights Commissioner Brice Dickson insisted that the inquiry should begin straight away.

"Whatever conclusions are reached will enable other schools and indeed the Department to draw lessons from what happened," he said.

"We have been calling for this inquiry to happen immediately, and we don't see why it shouldn't happen alongside civil proceedings."