Global victims call for accountability as Iain Wares faces extradition for child abuse

The UK victims of former SA teacher Iain Wares, who is expected to face his extradition hearing in Cape Town in April for the sexual and physical abuse of 65 boys, with an indictment listing 90 charges, have shared their decades of pain and calls for justice.

On Tuesday, Women and Men Against Child Abuse (WMACA) held a press briefing to contextualise the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry's findings and confront the institutional failures in Cape Town that allowed Wares, an alleged prolific child sexual abuser, to continue his crimes.

WMACA said in January 2026, the UK published the findings of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, chaired by Lady Smith.

“For the first time, sealed medical records, confidential interviews, and suppressed institutional correspondence were placed into the public domain. The result is devastating in its clarity,” WMACA said.

“The Inquiry confirms that Iain Wares sexually and physically abused prepubescent boys on an unprecedented scale during his twelve years teaching in Scotland, offending on thousands of occasions. Many survivors, now elderly men, are still living with the consequences more than fifty years later.

“The scale is staggering. The enablers are named. And crucially for South Africa, the pipeline that allowed this abuse to flourish runs straight through Cape Town.”

During the press briefing, Wares' alleged UK victims, Neil Douglas, Jed Gordon, Nicholas Oday, and others, shared their pain and the impact of the abuse with Cape Town journalists, calling for accountability and highlighting similarities with a local victim, “Stephen,” who broke his silence after decades as a learner at Rondebosch Boys Preparatory School, where Wares taught.

“He claimed he never abused anyone in South Africa; I can tell you he did,” said Douglas. “Dirty old men are called dirty for a reason… he is living in a retirement home in Cape Town, with other people, who have grandchildren who visit there, and he is a paedophile and he would not have changed.

"I have been diagnosed with PTSD, which is well managed at the moment, but I can feel it rising in me as we talk about it and the domestic case in South Africa."

Nicholas Oday shared how Wares allegedly abused him: “He beat me on the back of the thighs; that was something he really enjoyed doling. He always looked at ways to make it extremely painful.”

Jed Gordon broke down in tears and called for those who enabled him to be employed within the education sphere locally and globally to also face a form of accountability.

Douglas added: “He must never be allowed to be around other children; there needs to be protection.

“We doubted that it happened to us, and hearing a court and him being found guilty will do so much for survivors. There needs to be a measure of justice; he committed hideous crimes he should not be allowed to rest in a retirement village and be comfortable. He should spend most of his days locked up for it.”

WMACA said Wares was allowed to commit his alleged crimes from one country to another, finally ending up in Cape Town: “Wares returned to South Africa after being quietly moved on from post after post. Today, he resides in Cape Town while fighting extradition on nearly 100 charges involving more than 50 identified victims.”

In January, Wares made an appearance at the Simonstown Magistrates’ Court following a recent Constitutional Court outcome relating to his continued release on bail. During proceedings, Wares was informed by Magistrate Lutfie Rhodie that he would be back in the dock on April 16, 2026, for his extradition hearing to proceed.

The charges arise from allegations that Wares sexually abused at least 65 boys aged between 8 and 13 over an eleven-year period while employed as a mathematics teacher and rugby coach in Edinburgh between 1968 and 1979.

Wares, 86, was arrested in October 2025 following an Interpol notice, and has already been ruled extraditable on three counts of indecent assault.

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