Shamed ex-teacher Iain Wares, 87, collapsed during a sentencing hearing for indecent assault in South Africa. Wares, who is wanted for sex crimes against 68 schoolboys in Scotland, could have been jailed for five years after being found guilty of indecently assaulting a 12-year-old former pupil in Cape Town in 1988.
Collapse during lunch break
At Wynberg Magistrates Court, his defence social worker had just begun giving her risk assessment of Wares when the court broke for lunch after 30 minutes of evidence. Wares and his wife Rosemary went to a nearby café, and after sitting down, Wares suddenly slumped to his right.
A passer-by caught him and propped him up, but the married father-of-one was struggling for breath. While a friend tried to call an ambulance, locals rushed to his aid. He was in a state of collapse and unable to support himself as he sat at a dining bench.
After three or four minutes, Wares opened his eyes and slowly began to breathe normally. He was helped back into a seating position and was told a medic was on route. He said he felt too weak to walk the 100 yards back to the court after lunch.
Medical emergency and adjournment
When the court resumed at 2pm, magistrate Vanessa Miki was told by Wares’s defence lawyer William Fullard that his client had suffered a medical emergency in the lunch break. Wares suffers from Type 2 Diabetes, and court rules state he cannot take food inside, so he began to feel unwell after entering the court at 8am.
He told his wife after his collapse: “I went too long without food. Did I faint? I have fainted before but nothing like this. I can’t remember anything that happened.”
His daughter and son-in-law raced to the café and took him away for medical attention. The magistrate accepted that Wares could not return to court, and the social worker giving evidence, Mrs Arima Smit, was told the case would be adjourned until September 4.
Background and extradition case
The medical delay follows the forced adjournment of the sentencing hearing last month when Wares failed to appear claiming to have shingles. A warrant was issued for his arrest but was cancelled when his defence lawyer provided a medical letter confirming the decision, on the strict understanding that he would appear before the court yesterday.
Wares faces extradition to Scotland on 90 charges of rape, indecent assault and physical assault against 65 boys he taught in Edinburgh between 1968 and 1979. He has already been found extraditable from South Africa to Scotland on three charges of indecent assault on three other boys, with all 93 victims aged between 8 and 13.
The extradition case, running in parallel in a separate court, cannot send him back to Scotland before the local case is dealt with. If Wares receives a prison sentence, he cannot be extradited until he has served it, but a more lenient suspended sentence means he can be extradited.
Wares was found guilty in March of sex attacks against “Stephen”, who was aged 12 in the corridors of Rondebosch Boys School in Cape Town in 1988. The victim, now a 48-year-old father-of-two, said he was too terrified of teacher Wares to report him at the time.
Scottish Police had Wares arrested by Interpol in October last year for 90 alleged offences against former pupils in Edinburgh. On September 22, the State prosecutor Miss Maresa Engelbrecht will formally put the 90 charges in front of the court and ask the magistrate to find Wares extraditable on all.
Wares was first arrested in 2018 by Interpol for sex crimes in Scotland and was ruled extraditable in 2019, but took the case to the Court of Appeal, which he lost in 2024. During the appeal process, Wares was again arrested in 2023 after “Stephen” claimed he had been the victim of indecent assault.
BBC radio presenter Nicky Campbell has been spearheading the campaign for Wares to be extradited from South Africa, dubbing him “Jimmy Savile 2”. Campbell, OBE, admitted he was abused at one of the two schools Wares taught at, although not by him, but said he witnessed him sexually molesting friends of his.
