Years before 30-year-old Brian MacKinnon was rumbled for posing as schoolboy Brandon Lee, Inverurie Academy had its own imposter pupil.
MacKinnon famously went back to his old school in Bearsden in 1993 and lead a double life as a 17-year-old boy in a bid to study medicine at Dundee University.
Having originally left Bearsden Academy in 1980, he assumed a new identity and returned to the same school as Brandon Lee.
Despite being head and shoulders above his peers – both physically and academically – he successfully duped teachers for two years.
It was only after leaving school that his astonishing ruse was exposed, and his web of lies unfurled in 1995.
‘Woman posed as a teenager’
The stranger-than-fiction story was recently retold in a film made by ex-classmate Jono McLeod called My Old School.
But at the time, the explosive revelations made headlines around the world.
And during an urgent investigation into the controversy, it emerged that Inverurie Academy had had its own imposter pupil.
In 1991, a 21-year-old woman posed as a schoolgirl to become enrolled as a pupil at the Garioch secondary school.
The would-be pupil was interviewed for admission to the school and completed the necessary paperwork.
The woman posed as a teenager and was even thought to have spent a few days at Inverurie Academy before being found out.
Her real age came to light several days after the interview, and Grampian Regional Council confirmed that she was never enrolled.
The spokesman was quick to dismiss any similarities with the Brian MacKinnon case.
But the Inverurie incident only came to light in 1995 amid the intense speculation at Bearsden Academy.
Rector raised concerns
Alasdair Hogg, rector at Inverurie Academy during the 1980s and 1990s, said admission checks had been tightened following the case four years before.
He said: “I was concerned things were not right.”
Mr Hogg added that it was the “only incident of its kind” he’d come across in Aberdeenshire in nearly 20 years as a head teacher.
But, unlike MacKinnon, the woman’s motive wasn’t an elaborate way to get grades for university.
He explained that the woman was referred to the 1,330-pupil school by the council’s social work department.
Her parents weren’t from Scotland, and it was believed she may have been trying to become enrolled as a pupil so she could get a foster care place.
Birth certificates not required for enrolment
Birth certificates weren’t requested from applicants to Inverurie Academy, but their previous schools were contacted.
If no school could be provided or other discrepancies arose, this lead to other checks.
What makes the real-life story about Brian MacKinnon even more baffling is that he was asked to provide a birth certificate, but didn’t.
Despite not requiring a birth certificate from the pretend pupil, Mr Hogg was confident that the woman would have been detected quickly had she been successfully enrolled.
He was also at pains to point out that many secondary schools in the region did have adults on the roll so that they could sit Higher exams as further education.
‘I kept my head down, looked shy and boyish’
It was the pursuit of further education that motivated Scotland’s most famous schoolboy Brian MacKinnon – under the guise of Brandon Lee – to return to his old schooldays stomping ground.
My Old School, featuring Alan Cumming as MacKinnon, details the bizarre story told in MacKinnon’s own words.
Upon leaving school the first time in 1980, he went on to study medicine at Glasgow University but left the course after twice failing his exams.
Determined to become a doctor, he came up with the ploy to reinvent himself and go back to school.
As part of his cover, MacKinnon adopted an odd Canadian accent and invented a pitiful backstory about living in Canada with his opera singer mother.
He claimed touring with his mum meant he missed out on formal education, and when she tragically died, he returned to Bearsden to live with his granny and finish school.
MacKinnon explained: “I simply kept my head down, looked shy and boyish.”
Second attempt at studying medicine failed
An odd, awkward but funny person, MacKinnon settled in, made friends, and astounded both his peers and his teachers with an incredible knowledge seemingly beyond his years.
Little did they know he was probably older than many of the teachers whose tutelage he was under.
And it even transpired that some of the older teachers had even taught him the first time round.
MacKinnon completed school and was successfully accepted into Dundee University, but his cover was blown when a neighbour revealed his true identity in 1995.
Upon discovering the truth, his second attempt at studying medicine came to an end as he was thrown out of Dundee University for “lack of integrity”.
Conversation