Celtic grope hell: 'I was betrayed by the club I love'

[JFK-1 1,693]

Think I would rather have a Joey Barton moment than this.

 

AN ANGRY mum has claimed she was groped and sexually harassed for seven years by her boss at Celtic , then paid off and gagged by the club.

 

Donna Quinn told how events and security manager David Brannan groped her in front of her teenage son, repeatedly touched her inappropriately and belittled and verbally abused her.

 

But she says a senior club official she went to for advice urged her not to go to police and said the matter would be dealt with “in-house”.

 

Donna Quinn with the SPL trophy at Celtic Park

Donna also claimed that after the allegations emerged and Brannan abruptly disappeared from Celtic Park, friends of his at the club bullied her so severely that she had to go off sick.

 

And she says Celtic then gave her a £14,000 severance package which barred her from discussing why she had left.

 

While Donna, 44, struggles to recover, it’s understood ex-policeman Brannan now has another job in football with league newcomers Edinburgh City FC.

 

Donna still loves the club she served for many years, but she feels badly let down by how she says she was treated.

 

She told the Daily Record: “I devoted my working life to Celtic. I thought I was part of the Celtic family.

 

“The club did not deal with this properly. I went on the sick because I had no alternative. I was the victim of this for seven years.

 

READ MORE

Exclusive: Sex pest cop faces second probe after being suspended over harrassment claim

“Now I’ve been left with no job. It’s disgusting. They have left me high and dry, without a job, everything.

 

“Celtic just brushed this under the carpet.

 

“Months later I’m only now beginning to pick up the pieces. I’ve lost my job and my income, yet I was the victim.

 

“It should have been a dream job for me. Instead, it was a nightmare.”

 

Lifelong Celtic fan Donna started working for the club when she was 13, in stadium food stalls.

 

She worked her way up to a role which involved security work and going on some European trips. She met stars including Lionel Messi and acted as guide for first minister Alex Salmond when he visited Celtic Park.

 

Salmond was so impressed with Donna that he sent her a signed book of images of Scotland. She earned £23,000 a year when she left the club.

 

Brannan began working in administration at Celtic after a police career that lasted more than 30 years. He became events and security manager in 2006, with Donna as an assistant.

 

Donna never reported Brannan to his bosses, but at one point she went to a senior member of the club’s management team for advice about his behaviour.

 

She told us: “When I said I was thinking about going to the police, they said I shouldn’t do that, that it should be kept in-house.”

 

A colleague of Donna’s eventually spoke to management about Brannan and an investigation began.

 

Donna said: “Celtic came to ask me about it. I told them.”

 

She then detailed Brannan’s alleged physical and verbal abuse of her in a lengthy interview with a member of the club’s human resources department.

 

She described the abuse as “constant and degrading”. She said she asked Brannan time and again to stop, and he would often reply: “I’m outrageous, aren’t I?”

 

Donna claimed Brannan told her several times that he would get her sacked if she ever complained about him. She said he told her: “You can be replaced like that. You’re s***e at your job anyway.”

 

“I used to cry before going in to work,” Donna told the HR officer.

 

“I used to dress down and not wear make-up or perfume to try to be as unattractive as possible.

 

“Every day I was getting remarks, and he would walk past and hit my backside or poke me in the chest.

 

“Sometimes I’d be walking to the canteen and he would say things like ‘you’ve got a gorgeous a**e’ and hit me on the bum.

 

“If ever I dropped a pen and bent down to pick it up, he’d grab my head and say ‘while you’re down there’ and try and pull my head towards him.

 

“If I was ever on holiday he would text me and say, ‘You’d better have white bits for me to see.’

 

“I dreaded going to work. The insults, touching and bullying were happening in front of others, which made it more degrading for me.”

 

Donna told how Brannan came to her home to check on her when she was off sick with broken ribs in 2014.

 

She said he asked her: “Do your t*ts hurt? Let’s see your t*ts.”

 

Donna said she told him no, and he replied: “Well, you have run out of sick pay so get back to work.”

 

She also claimed she once tried on a jacket at work, and Brannan told her: “Your t*ts look big in that.”

 

Donna said that another time, when new stewards’ jackets arrived, he said to her: “Take that jacket and try it on over those big t*ts.

 

“Try those trousers too and see if you can get them over that big fat a**e of yours.”

 

Donna said Brannan called her “Jugsy” in front of other staff – using a club radio.

 

She explained: “When travel stewards go to games they are given a radio and he would make fun of me as it would be all males.

 

“He would refer to me as ‘Jugsy’ or ‘Big T*ts’ and everyone thought this was hilarious but me.

 

“I didn’t want anything like this. It wasn’t welcome and I wanted him to stop.”

 

Donna said of Brannan: “He would walk past my desk and poke me in the side of my chest.

 

“I told him every time he made a remark or touched me not to do that. “He would just say I was ‘f*****g frigid’.

 

“He made my feel I couldn’t complain about him because I was so scared of losing my job.

 

“On several occasions he told me, ‘Keep your mouth shut or you’ll get sacked.’”

 

Donna said she would often cry before walking into work because she dreaded “facing the working day with David”.

 

The HR officer’s interview notes, which the Record has seen, referred to an alleged incident in the week commencing April 13, 2015.

 

They said: “Donna had been crouched down on the ground to retrieve a box. David was stood over her with his hand shaking in his pocket in a sexualised manner.”

 

Brannan allegedly said: “Whilst you’re there, Donna.”

 

The notes went on: “Similar situations have arisen over the course of the last seven years.”

 

On April 14, 2015, the notes said, Brannan put his hands on Donna’s shoulder and “started to rub”. It added: “Donna shuddered.”

 

On the same day, it was claimed, Brannan “prodded his finger into her breast”, and also stood behind her, grabbed her underpants inside her clothing and “lifted them high”.

 

“Donna was left in pain and went to the toilet to cry,” the document said.

 

Donna said colleagues witnessed her encounters with Brannan and were left “uncomfortable” or “disgusted”.

 

The notes listed other sexual comments, including a claim that Brannan told Donna in March 2015: “You need a good s**g.”

 

Donna said Brannan would often call or text her on her company phone.

 

And when she began turning it off at night, he began phoning her landline.

 

The notes also referred to an alleged incident at a “Cup Final Party at the Jock Stein Lounge”.

 

They said Donna was asked to stand beside Brannan for a photo, said no and was asked again. She then went and stood next to Brannan, who groped her, and her teenage son saw the incident.

 

The notes said the boy asked his mum about it and was clearly very upset. Donna felt she had to play it down and described it as “office banter”.

 

But back at home later, the boy walked in on Donna, found her in tears, and “realised it was more serious than she had told him”.

 

After the club’s investigation began, Brannan vanished from the stadium.

 

Donna was never told what had happened to him or whether he was still an employee. She would phone in the morning before going to work to check if he was there.

 

It’s believed Brannan left the club in July 2015. But Donna says her ordeal continued after his departure as his friends at the club hounded her.

 

She said: “I was breaking my heart. I’d been called a whore, a cow, a slag. I had people coming in, shouting at me.

 

“It became unbearable. It was if I’d done something rather than him.”

 

Donna went to her doctor who advised her to take time off sick and said her nerves were shattered because of the situation at work.

 

Her last day in her job was in September 2015. Celtic later offered her a £14,000 severance deal on condition she did not discuss anything that had happened.

 

Donna said: “At the time I took the deal I wasn’t thinking straight.

 

“I felt stressed and terrorised because of what had gone on. I was in bits.”

 

Her employment formally ended on December 31, 2015.

 

Donna told us the only Celtic boss who showed any concern for her was chief executive Peter Lawwell.

 

She said: “I was at the launch of the New Balance kit deal in 2015 and unfortunately I’d been crying my eyes out. I must have looked really upset although I was trying to hide it.

 

“Peter Lawwell may have recognised me because I’d been on a European trip not that long before. He took me aside and asked if I was all right.

 

“He asked how I was coping. I said I wasn’t coping very well. I said I was trying to cope.

 

“He just said well, he hoped things would turn out all right.

 

“I think that was the only time anybody in any kind of authority showed any kind of compassion or concern about me during that whole terrible period. I appreciated him taking the time.”

 

Brannan is now understood to be a safety officer for Edinburgh City. He was not at his home in Glasgow when we tried to speak to him.

 

His wife Bernadette said: “We’ve been shut up. We can’t talk to anybody. He’s not with the club any more and we can’t discuss it with anyone.”

 

Asked if she was aware of the allegations, she said: “About my husband, oh yeah, total nonsense but we can’t talk any more.

 

“You ask Celtic about it. You ask Celtic about it and see if they’ll talk to you.”

 

After repeated requests, Celtic declined to comment.

 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/mum-tells-celtic-grope-hell-8853394

[the gunslinger 3,366]

Another celtc cover up.

[BrahimHemdani 1]

Not immediately obvious to me what this nonsense has to do with a Rangers Forum.

[ian1964 10,724]

Not immediately obvious to me what this nonsense has to do with a Rangers Forum.

 

It's obvious to me!,it's the football chat room which means any story involving any football club!,we have a Rangers chat for anything Rangers!,simples!

[barca72 440]

Not immediately obvious to me what this nonsense has to do with a Rangers Forum.

 

Basically, that woman went through hell and you call it nonsense?

Here's a post from FF that will be hard to follow. ...

 

 

Ralphbrand

Ralphbrand is offline Trialist

Join Date:10-06-2015Posts:243

Default Celtic and the sound of silence.

 

Sexual abuse, whatever form it takes, is an abhorrent thing. The victims tend to be the most vulnerable; young children, women, disabled people and others, who for whatever reason cannot look after themselves. Those who perpetrate such crimes tend to be intelligent, cunning and extremely manipulative. They also tend to be the people in power within an organization.

This morning's revelations about a woman who was sexually abused by her supervisor at Celtic F.C. fits the profile perfectly. By all accounts, the woman who is also a mother and a Celtic supporter, was touched up and subjected to verbal profanities by the head of 'security' over a period of years. There is of course a perverse irony in the fact that the person who is supposed to protect, was in fact the one who was committing the crime. As a man, it is difficult for me to imagine what it must be like for a woman going to work, after taking her children to school. What must have been going through her head as she made her way to Celtic Park? The stress, the shame, the sheer sense of impotence must have made her life a living hell for years. By the look of her, she looks a broken woman, and who can blame her?

(There has been precedent, Andy Gray was sacked within twenty four hours after being caught on camera making ONE sexist remark. SKY terminated his and his buddie's lucrative contracts as this was judged as being unacceptable. A key difference is Andy Gray worked in England, whereas Donna Quinn lives in Scotland).

 

Donna Quinn need not feel any sense of guilt, she was the victim. She did the right thing and informed her superiors and waited for action to be taken. No action was taken and this merely emboldened her boss to further abuse her. Those in power at Celtic followed the tried and tested route; go silent, isolate the victim, encourage her molester to seek promotion elsewhere and finally get rid off the victim with hush money. At no point in this process is the actual crime addressed, never mind the welfare of the victim. Let's be clear about one thing, this woman was not an embittered, twisted ex-employee bent on destroying Celtic. The article said that she was a die hard Celtic fan and had made her way 'up' the ranks and was photographed with various stars including Messi. So, she was simply telling the truth, unfortunately telling the truth, never mind seeking justice, are alien to the Celtic way.

 

It's also worth pointing out that Celtic does not pay the minimum wage, which means that all employees there are left to the vagaries of their masters. Much of the Celtic merchandise is produced in distant sweat shops in the far east, where young children are employed in slave like conditions to make shirts for the equivalent of a bowl of rice. Very strange that an organization which espouses helping the underdog and giving to charity cannot even pay the absolute minimum to its employees at Celtic Park. So as well as sexual abuse, we have employees of Celtic also being financially exploited.

 

There are three institutions where sexual abuse has flourished down the years. The BBC, the RC church and Celtic FC.

To be fair, belatedly there has been some limited form of recognition and action from the BBC and the RC church, people have been arrested and victims' voices heard. Not at Celtic however. They have literally no shame, no sense of introspection and self criticism. Everything is about protecting the brand, that mythical, mystical romantic nonsense about being the 'people's club', the club of the downtrodden and dispossessed. Peter Lawwell, the Machiavellian Mick, is the spin master of Scotland, the puppeteer par excellence who has more strings than the Berlin Philharmonic.

 

Finally, the truth will out. Last Saturday, the whole world saw Celtic football club at its worse. Banners of hatred, effigies of a sexually perverted nature. Who in God's name even conceived of this stunt?, whoever they are need to seek professional help. Their minds may be twisted, but whoever they are, they know that as sure as night follows day, no action will be taken against them. Unlike Donna Quinn, they will return to Celtic Park as highly valued 'customers' by Peter Lawwell and at Celtic Park it is always just about the money.

[JFK-1 1,693]

Not immediately obvious to me what this nonsense has to do with a Rangers Forum.

 

A general football forum? It's not in Rangers chat. Aren't they a football club? You imagine the people on every other club forum wouldn't see what this nonsense had to do with a football forum if it were our football club involved in such a thing?

 

I have to say it's not immediately obvious to me why you would think that.

[pete 2,499]

 

 

 

Mum tells of her Celtic grope hell: 'I was betrayed by the club I love'

 

06:00, 17 Sep 2016

By Keith McLeod

 

DONNA Quinn devoted her life to working at Celtic and felt like family, until her Parkhead sex abuse nightmare began.

AN ANGRY mum has claimed she was groped and sexually harassed for seven years by her boss at Celtic , then paid off and gagged by the club.

 

Donna Quinn told how events and security manager David Brannan groped her in front of her teenage son, repeatedly touched her inappropriately and belittled and verbally abused her.

 

But she says a senior club official she went to for advice urged her not to go to police and said the matter would be dealt with “in-house”.

Donna Quinn with the SPL trophy at Celtic Park

 

Donna also claimed that after the allegations emerged and Brannan abruptly disappeared from Celtic Park, friends of his at the club bullied her so severely that she had to go off sick.

 

And she says Celtic then gave her a £14,000 severance package which barred her from discussing why she had left.

 

While Donna, 44, struggles to recover, it’s understood ex-policeman Brannan now has another job in football with league newcomers Edinburgh City FC.

 

Donna still loves the club she served for many years, but she feels badly let down by how she says she was treated.

 

She told the Daily Record: “I devoted my working life to Celtic. I thought I was part of the Celtic family.

 

“The club did not deal with this properly. I went on the sick because I had no alternative. I was the victim of this for seven years.

 

Read More

 

Exclusive: Sex pest cop faces second probe after being suspended over harrassment claim

 

“Now I’ve been left with no job. It’s disgusting. They have left me high and dry, without a job, everything.

 

“Celtic just brushed this under the carpet.

 

“Months later I’m only now beginning to pick up the pieces. I’ve lost my job and my income, yet I was the victim.

 

“It should have been a dream job for me. Instead, it was a nightmare.”

 

Lifelong Celtic fan Donna started working for the club when she was 13, in stadium food stalls.

 

She worked her way up to a role which involved security work and going on some European trips. She met stars including Lionel Messi and acted as guide for first minister Alex Salmond when he visited Celtic Park.

 

Salmond was so impressed with Donna that he sent her a signed book of images of Scotland. She earned £23,000 a year when she left the club.

 

Brannan began working in administration at Celtic after a police career that lasted more than 30 years. He became events and security manager in 2006, with Donna as an assistant.

PA Wire

David Brannan with former manager Neil Lennon

 

Donna never reported Brannan to his bosses, but at one point she went to a senior member of the club’s management team for advice about his behaviour.

 

She told us: “When I said I was thinking about going to the police, they said I shouldn’t do that, that it should be kept in-house.”

 

A colleague of Donna’s eventually spoke to management about Brannan and an investigation began.

 

Donna said: “Celtic came to ask me about it. I told them.”

 

She then detailed Brannan’s alleged physical and verbal abuse of her in a lengthy interview with a member of the club’s human resources department.

 

She described the abuse as “constant and degrading”. She said she asked Brannan time and again to stop, and he would often reply: “I’m outrageous, aren’t I?”

 

Donna claimed Brannan told her several times that he would get her sacked if she ever complained about him. She said he told her: “You can be replaced like that. You’re s***e at your job anyway.”

 

“I used to cry before going in to work,” Donna told the HR officer.

 

“I used to dress down and not wear make-up or perfume to try to be as unattractive as possible.

 

“Every day I was getting remarks, and he would walk past and hit my backside or poke me in the chest.

 

“Sometimes I’d be walking to the canteen and he would say things like ‘you’ve got a gorgeous a**e’ and hit me on the bum.

 

“If ever I dropped a pen and bent down to pick it up, he’d grab my head and say ‘while you’re down there’ and try and pull my head towards him.

 

“If I was ever on holiday he would text me and say, ‘You’d better have white bits for me to see.’

 

“I dreaded going to work. The insults, touching and bullying were happening in front of others, which made it more degrading for me.”

 

Donna told how Brannan came to her home to check on her when she was off sick with broken ribs in 2014.

 

She said he asked her: “Do your t*ts hurt? Let’s see your t*ts.”

Donna with Lionel Messi at Celtic Park

 

Donna said she told him no, and he replied: “Well, you have run out of sick pay so get back to work.”

 

She also claimed she once tried on a jacket at work, and Brannan told her: “Your t*ts look big in that.”

 

Donna said that another time, when new stewards’ jackets arrived, he said to her: “Take that jacket and try it on over those big t*ts.

 

“Try those trousers too and see if you can get them over that big fat a**e of yours.”

 

Donna said Brannan called her “Jugsy” in front of other staff – using a club radio.

 

She explained: “When travel stewards go to games they are given a radio and he would make fun of me as it would be all males.

 

“He would refer to me as ‘Jugsy’ or ‘Big T*ts’ and everyone thought this was hilarious but me.

 

“I didn’t want anything like this. It wasn’t welcome and I wanted him to stop.”

 

Donna said of Brannan: “He would walk past my desk and poke me in the side of my chest.

 

“I told him every time he made a remark or touched me not to do that. “He would just say I was ‘f*****g frigid’.

 

“He made my feel I couldn’t complain about him because I was so scared of losing my job.

 

“On several occasions he told me, ‘Keep your mouth shut or you’ll get sacked.’”

 

Donna said she would often cry before walking into work because she dreaded “facing the working day with David”.

 

The HR officer’s interview notes, which the Record has seen, referred to an alleged incident in the week commencing April 13, 2015.

 

They said: “Donna had been crouched down on the ground to retrieve a box. David was stood over her with his hand shaking in his pocket in a sexualised manner.”

 

Brannan allegedly said: “Whilst you’re there, Donna.”

 

The notes went on: “Similar situations have arisen over the course of the last seven years.”

 

On April 14, 2015, the notes said, Brannan put his hands on Donna’s shoulder and “started to rub”. It added: “Donna shuddered.”

 

On the same day, it was claimed, Brannan “prodded his finger into her breast”, and also stood behind her, grabbed her underpants inside her clothing and “lifted them high”.

 

“Donna was left in pain and went to the toilet to cry,” the document said.

 

Donna said colleagues witnessed her encounters with Brannan and were left “uncomfortable” or “disgusted”.

 

The notes listed other sexual comments, including a claim that Brannan told Donna in March 2015: “You need a good s**g.”

 

Donna said Brannan would often call or text her on her company phone.

 

And when she began turning it off at night, he began phoning her landline.

 

The notes also referred to an alleged incident at a “Cup Final Party at the Jock Stein Lounge”.

 

They said Donna was asked to stand beside Brannan for a photo, said no and was asked again. She then went and stood next to Brannan, who groped her, and her teenage son saw the incident.

 

The notes said the boy asked his mum about it and was clearly very upset. Donna felt she had to play it down and described it as “office banter”.

 

But back at home later, the boy walked in on Donna, found her in tears, and “realised it was more serious than she had told him”.

 

After the club’s investigation began, Brannan vanished from the stadium.

 

Donna was never told what had happened to him or whether he was still an employee. She would phone in the morning before going to work to check if he was there.

 

It’s believed Brannan left the club in July 2015. But Donna says her ordeal continued after his departure as his friends at the club hounded her.

 

She said: “I was breaking my heart. I’d been called a whore, a cow, a slag. I had people coming in, shouting at me.

 

“It became unbearable. It was if I’d done something rather than him.”

 

Donna went to her doctor who advised her to take time off sick and said her nerves were shattered because of the situation at work.

 

Her last day in her job was in September 2015. Celtic later offered her a £14,000 severance deal on condition she did not discuss anything that had happened.

 

Donna said: “At the time I took the deal I wasn’t thinking straight.

 

“I felt stressed and terrorised because of what had gone on. I was in bits.”

 

Her employment formally ended on December 31, 2015.

 

Donna told us the only Celtic boss who showed any concern for her was chief executive Peter Lawwell.

 

She said: “I was at the launch of the New Balance kit deal in 2015 and unfortunately I’d been crying my eyes out. I must have looked really upset although I was trying to hide it.

 

“Peter Lawwell may have recognised me because I’d been on a European trip not that long before. He took me aside and asked if I was all right.

Donna had a sexual harassment case against Celtic FC

 

“He asked how I was coping. I said I wasn’t coping very well. I said I was trying to cope.

 

“He just said well, he hoped things would turn out all right.

 

“I think that was the only time anybody in any kind of authority showed any kind of compassion or concern about me during that whole terrible period. I appreciated him taking the time.”

 

Brannan is now understood to be a safety officer for Edinburgh City. He was not at his home in Glasgow when we tried to speak to him.

 

His wife Bernadette said: “We’ve been shut up. We can’t talk to anybody. He’s not with the club any more and we can’t discuss it with anyone.”

 

Asked if she was aware of the allegations, she said: “About my husband, oh yeah, total nonsense but we can’t talk any more.

 

“You ask Celtic about it. You ask Celtic about it and see if they’ll talk to you.”

 

After repeated requests, Celtic declined to comment.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/mum-tells-celtic-grope-hell-8853394

 

Surely Celtic would never cover up sexual abuse?

Edited September 18, 2016 by pete

[compo 7,041]

So who knew this time

[pete 2,499]

So who knew this time

 

Big Peter Knew?

[BrahimHemdani 1]

It's obvious to me that you posted it because it occurred or is alleged to have occurred at Celtic FC.

 

If it had occurred elsewhere I doubt it would have rated a mention.