Celtic Boys Club manager 'stuffed banknotes in boy's mouth'

[ian1964 10,724]

 

[ian1964 10,724]

 

[ian1964 10,724]

 

[Uilleam 5,948]

Six Degrees of Separation? 

Not even one. 

 

From The Times, today:

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jim-torbett-paedophile-who-abused-young-footballers-also-headed-up-celtics-chain-of-club-shops-qc2vtd8db

 

Jim Torbett: Paedophile who abused young footballers also headed up Celtic’s chain of club shops

Marc Horne

Monday June 01 2020, 12.01am, The Times

Celtic has refused to to accept responsibility for systematic sexual abuse at its feeder club

 

 

A twice-convicted paedophile was employed by Celtic while he preyed on young players, further undermining the club’s refusal to accept responsibility for systematic sexual abuse at its feeder club.

Jim Torbett, 72, the founder of Celtic Boys Club, was jailed for six years in 2018 for sexually abusing boys between August 1986 and August 1994. He had previously served a two-year sentence for molesting players, including the future Scotland striker Alan Brazil, at the boys’ club between 1967 and 1974.

While expressing “regret and sympathy”, Celtic have distanced themselves from Torbett, describing the boys’ club as an “entirely separate organisation” with which they had “historic contacts”.

 

However, The Times can disclose that in addition to coaching he was hired by the club to run a chain of shops, selling merchandise. Torbett’s firm, the Trophy Centre, also had a long-running contract with Celtic. The revelations will heap further pressure on the champions after four senior figures at the boys’ club were convicted of molesting children over four decades.

In March 1994 The Celtic View, the club’s magazine, carried an article about sales. It states: “Jim Torbett, who oversees the Celtic Shops. . .” Four months earlier the magazine reported on how Torbett had launched a club shop in Argyle Street, Glasgow. In 1994 Celtic listed three shops, one department store concession and their staff as part of the club’s commercial division.

During his first trial in 1998 Hugh Birt, the late former boys’ club chairman, gave evidence that Jock Stein — then manager of Celtic FC — kicked Torbett out in 1974 after hearing claims of abuse, but did not inform the police.

It is a version of events corroborated by Lou Macari, the former Celtic player and manager, who wrote in his autobiography: “The wish to maintain the good name of Celtic was the only thing that kept the issue from coming to light.”

Torbett returned to Celtic Boys Club four years later and molested more boys, remaining there until 1996 when abuse allegations appeared in the press.

Passing sentence in 2018, Lord Beckett said: “You used the club as a front and a recruiting ground for boys who you could sexually abuse.”

In February Celtic FC said it was “very sorry” the abuse had happened, but still insisted that the boys’ club was separate. After Torbett’s 2018 conviction the club issued a statement saying: “Allegations regarding abuse at Celtic Boys Club first emerged in the 1990s.”

However, Celtic launched an internal investigation in 1986 that found “nothing to substantiate” the claims.

Thompsons Solicitors, which is representing about 20 abuse survivors, is preparing to launch legal action against the club. A Celtic spokesman said: “We would have no comment to make.”

A club insider added: “I’m not aware Torbett was actually employed directly by the club.”

Investigations by The Times have exposed the links between Celtic FC and its scandal-hit feeder club (Marc Horne writes).

Celtic has insisted that it is not legally culpable for the widespread abuse, describing the boys’ club as “entirely separate”.

However, their position was contradicted by their own official magazine.

In 1987 an article in The Celtic View said: “It was some 20 short years back that [the Celtic manager] Jock Stein and [the chairman] Sir Robert Kelly brought the boys’ club into the Celtic family.

“It is now 18 years since Jock and [the Celtic scout] John Higgins made the connection official.”

The previous year it featured a report saying: “David Hay [the Celtic manager] complimented Celtic Boys Club and once again confirmed that they are very much a part of Celtic FC.”

An archived copy of the now-defunct feeder club website stated it was the “only official Celtic Boys Club”, while its registered address was a Celtic FC training ground.

Jack McGinn, Celtic’s chairman at the time, was found to have accepted the resignation of the boys’ club coach Frank Cairney after allegations he had abused a teenager on a US tour in 1991. Mr McGinn’s involvement appears at odds with claims that there were no links between the clubs.

The Times uncovered documents showing that Stein had personally recruited Cairney to the boys’ club in 1970.

[Uilleam 5,948]

Another vignette of vileness from today's Times: 

 

Jock Stein signed autographs for Jim Torbett after sacking

Marc Horne

Monday June 01 2020, 12.01am, The Times

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jock-stein-signed-autographs-for-jim-torbett-after-sacking-m739flccx

 

Jock Stein signed autographs at a business run by Jim Torbett a decade after he kicked him out of Celtic Boys Club for molesting boys.

The football manager granted permission for Torbett to start the feeder club in 1966, but dismissed him eight years later after hearing about allegations of abuse.

However, in March 1984 The Glasgow Evening Times reported that Stein, manager of Scotland at the time, would be making a “personal appearance” at a branch of Torbett’s Trophy Centre on Kilmarnock Road in Glasgow.

Kevin Kelly, the Celtic FC chairman between 1991 and 1994, was a director of the Trophy Centre from 1989 until 2005, long after Torbett was first convicted and jailed. Mr Kelly and Jack McGinn, another former Celtic FC chairman who was also employed at the Trophy Centre, both strongly deny having any previous knowledge of Torbett’s offending.

Gerald King, a former Celtic Boys Club chairman who was convicted of abusing children in 2018, also had a job at the centre. Celtic FC had a long-term deal with the firm, reported to be worth £250,000 a year, which did not end until 2002.

At that time the club said: “Celtic had a long-term contractual obligation with the Trophy Centre. This has now lapsed.”

Torbett resigned as director of the centre in 2000 but it is not known when he left his position with Celtic FC’s retail arm.

In 2018 the High Court in Glasgow heard that one of his victims, now aged 37, was abused at Trophy Centre premises in the Pollokshaws area of the city.

[Uilleam 5,948]

St Thomas of the Calton, seemingly untroubled by doubt, friend and backer of Cairney and, it appears, Torbett.

Maybe he forgave them their tresspasses. Maybe he was told to do so, maybe by one of the high profile VIP guests. 

Maybe he just didn't know. 

 

From today's Times:

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/child-abuser-jim-torbett-ran-tommy-burns-and-sean-fallon-testimonials-for-celtic-fc-b6mxbds96

 

Child abuser Jim Torbett ran Tommy Burns and Sean Fallon testimonials for Celtic FC

Marc Horne

Tuesday June 02 2020, 12.01am, The Times

 

The club have repeatedly distanced themselves from the convicted paedophile but links have been emerging

 

A prolific sexual predator organised lavish official events with guests including a future cardinal and a bishop to celebrate the careers of Celtic FC players, The Times can disclose.

Jim Torbett, founder of Celtic Boys Club, was found guilty of abusing boys between 1986 and 1994 and jailed for six years in 2018. He was given a two-year sentence a decade earlier for molesting players at the feeder club between 1967 and 1974.

It has now emerged that Torbett, 72, organised testimonial events for Tommy Burns, the former Celtic player, coach and manager, and Sean Fallon, a long-serving assistant manager and player, further undermining claims that Torbett had no connection with the Parkhead club.

Guests who accepted his invitation to honour Fallon — Jock Stein’s right-hand man and confidant — included an archbishop, a bishop, the Lisbon Lions European Cup-winners, and Celtic FC’s directors, players and management team. Being given responsibility for such prestigious events suggests he was highly regarded by senior figures within Parkhead at the time.

While expressing sympathy for his victims Celtic have sought to distance themselves from Torbett’s crimes, insisting that the boys’ club was an “entirely separate organisation”.

However, The Times has also revealed that Torbett was hired by Celtic to run their club shops, in addition to his coaching duties, in the early 1990s.

A report on Fallon’s testimonial dinner, held in November 1993, in the club’s official magazine, thanks “Jim Torbett and his associates for organising such a wonderful occasion”. The Celtic View confirmed the guests of honour included “the Celtic directors, Archbishop Thomas Winning of Glasgow and Bishop Joseph Devine of Motherwell”.

In 2018 the Scottish child abuse inquiry heard evidence that Winning, who in 1994 became the second Scottish cardinal since the reformation, offered money to a woman in exchange for her silence over sexual abuse that took place in a Catholic-run residential home for children in the Sixties.

After being elevated to cardinal he caused outrage by asserting that the church had no obligation to report alleged paedophile priests to the police.

In 2013 Devine, who died last year, told a man seeking an apology for being raped by a priest as a child: “Can you not let him off with it? He’s an old man.”

A programme for the Burns testimonial match with Liverpool, which took place at Parkhead in 1987, confirms that Torbett was vice-chairman of the organising committee.

Burns played for the boys’ club from 1970-73 and frequently attended club functions and prizegivings when he went on to play for the senior club and served as manager. He died of skin cancer, aged 51, in 2008.

Torbett was kicked out of the boys’ club by Stein, then the Celtic manager, in 1974 after hearing claims of abuse — but the police were not informed. Stein, who died while Scotland manager in 1985, had given Torbett permission to start the boys’ club.

In March 1984 The Glasgow Evening Times reported that Stein would be making a “personal appearance” at a branch of Torbett’s Trophy Centre on Kilmarnock Road in Glasgow.

After his sacking Torbett was allowed to return four years later and went on to molest more boys, remaining there until 1996 when claims of abuse appeared in the press. Passing sentence in 2018 Lord Beckett said: “You used the club as a front and a recruiting ground for boys who you could sexually abuse.”

In February Celtic said it was “very sorry” the abuse had happened but insisted the boys’ club was a separate organisation.

After Torbett’s 2018 conviction the club issued a statement which said that allegations of abuse at the boys’ club “first emerged in the 1990s”. It subsequently emerged that Celtic launched an internal investigation in 1986 which “cleared” Torbett and his colleagues and stated their intention was for the claims to be “buried once and for all”.

Celtic did not respond to a request for comment.

Edited June 2, 2020 by Uilleam

[ian1964 10,724]

 

[ian1964 10,724]

 

[ian1964 10,724]

 

[Uilleam 5,948]

Pederasty Inc: the story continues, with its East Coast affiliate.

Not a separate entity, I'm afraid; perhaps we could call it "semi-detached". 

 

From today's Times

 

Secretary at east coast Celtic feeder club was child abuser

Marc Horne

Tuesday June 09 2020, 12.01am, The Times

Celtic FC launched Celtic East Youth Club in 1989 to match its “excellent counterpart”

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/secretary-at-east-coast-celtic-feeder-club-was-child-abuser-lsx0jm87x

 

Celtic FC created and funded a second feeder club which became embroiled in its own child abuse scandal, The Times can reveal.

The Parkhead club has repeatedly distanced itself from systemic abuse at Celtic Boys Club in which four members, including the founder, Jim Torbett, were convicted of molesting dozens of children over four decades.

 

Now evidence has emerged that Celtic FC was behind the launch of a second youth feeder club in Edinburgh, called Celtic East Youth Club.

Neil Strachan became a leader of one of Scotland’s largest paedophile rings

In 1997 Neil Strachan, the secretary of Celtic East, was jailed for sexually assaulting a young boy and gained further notoriety when he was exposed as the ringleader of Scotland’s worst organised abuse network.

 

Celtic FC has always denied any formal connection with the Edinburgh club, which no longer exists, when Strachan was convicted.

However, official documents show that it oversaw the launch and provided money as well as coaching staff.

The creation of the east coast feeder side was announced in the Celtic View, the club magazine, in May 1989. It confirmed that the venture was being overseen by Benny Rooney, a youth development officer with Celtic FC.

“Celtic are currently in the process of setting up a Celtic Boys Club based in Edinburgh which will cater for all east coast youngsters,” it said.

“The new club will be known as the Celtic East Youth Club. The boys club will be run along the same lines as their excellent counterpart in the west run by Frank Cairney, Jim Torbett and their men.” It adds: “Celtic would help out with the initial costs and Benny himself will be helping out with coaching at the beginning.”

 

A report on the club’s first game was featured in a Celtic FC matchday programme three months later.

 

Strachan became a long-serving club official and referee despite being convicted of an indecent assault on a child in 1985, when he was 17. In 1997 he resigned from Celtic East after he was convicted of sexually assaulting a boy and sentenced to three years in jail.

After his release Strachan tried to rape an 18-month-old boy on Hogmanay 2005 and took a photograph of the incident.

Strachan, now 52, was at the heart of an organised abuse network, photographing his attacks and trading them with others. Detectives recovered 7,400 images and a succession of emails which were so graphic that experienced investigators were offered counselling.

Eight men were convicted in 2009 for their part in what police described as the “largest paedophile network dismantled in Scotland”.

They included Strachan’s co-conspirator James Rennie, now 49, who was chief executive of the charity LGBT Youth Scotland and used the name “kp[kid porn]lover99”. Both men are serving life sentences.

 

Torbett is two years into a six-year sentence for abusing boys between 1986 and 1994, having also been jailed in 1998 for molesting players at the feeder club between 1967 and 1974.

While expressing sympathy for his victims, Celtic has sought to distance itself from Torbett’s crimes, insisting the boys’ club was an “entirely separate organisation”. The club did not respond to a request for comment yesterday.