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A seven-year-old boy died after receiving a violent beating for taking too long to use the toilet, an inquiry heard.

Aldo Moroni was allegedly killed by a member of staff at top Catholic school St Columba’s College in Largs, Ayrshire, in 1980.

The claims were made by a former pupil, named Edward, at a hearing of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry in Edinburgh yesterday.

Edward, 64, said Aldo died after a beating by a religious brother called Brother Germanus, known by his real name as David McKell.

In 2014, Edward’s nephew, also a former pupil, told him he was at St Columba’s when Aldo had been ‘killed’ on the landing of the school.

"[My nephew said] there was screaming and holy murder going on; it got worse, and the next thing we [the nephew and his classmates] knew, there’s an ambulance there, and the next thing we knew we are at a funeral in Dunoon - Aldo was dead."

His nephew also told him the experience "haunts him to this day".

Children were informed at the time that Aldo had died after a heart attack.

The inquiry also heard that Edward - who attended the school in the 1960s - was molested by McKell on a dozen occasions, the Daily Mail reports.

Edward said: "I thought about my cowardice – could I have stopped that boy being killed?"

Edward tried to run away in around 1964 or 1965 because he was living in ‘absolute fear and horror’ of the paedophile brother, who passed away in 1998.

Edward left without any qualifications and in 2014 contacted the Marist Brothers to tell them about the abuse he received.

One member of the order insisted that they would contact police on his behalf - but Edward later found out that this never happened.

McKell is reported to have died in 1998. The inquiry, before Lady Smith, continues.