A former Rangers and Hibernian youth coach trafficked young players across the border so he could abuse them and introduce them to other predators.Gordon Neely, who also coached with Dundee United and Edinburgh youth side Hutchison Vale, faced accusations but was never convicted before he died of c
www.thetimes.co.uk
Coach ‘trafficked boys over border’
Evidence has emerged which suggests a former Rangers and Hibernian youth coach was a prolific abuser
PA
Marc Horne
Tuesday March 17 2020, 12.01am GMT, The Times
A former Rangers and Hibernian youth coach trafficked young players across the border so he could abuse them and introduce them to other predators.
Gordon Neely, who also coached with Dundee United and Edinburgh youth side Hutchison Vale, faced accusations but was never convicted before he died of cancer in 2014, aged 62.
However, new evidence has emerged which suggests he was a prolific abuser who worked with other paedophiles in northwest England.
The Times understands that a number of Neely’s victims have given evidence to the independent review into sexual abuse in Scottish football, whose final report is due within weeks.
One man told how Neely took him and other Hutchison Vale players to a tournament in Stockport, Greater Manchester, in the early 1980s.
“We stayed at a YMCA,” he said. “There was a swimming pool and Neely introduced us to men there who were naked. Why on earth did a guy who lived in Edinburgh organise a tournament 250 miles away down in England? He did that so he could get us away from our families and abuse us.”
Crewe Alexandra were involved in the tournament but the survivor does not recall meeting Barry Bennell, a prolific paedophile who worked as a youth scout for the club.
However, Steve Walters, director of the Offside Trust, a support group for abuse victims, believes Neely and Bennell exchanged grooming tactics.
Both men would terrify young players with ghost stories and “haunted house” pranks before abusing them. Victims of Neely told how he hosted “ghost weekends” at an outdoor retreat centre in Perthshire, where he would encourage boys to go to his room if they were frightened. “The techniques used by Bennell and Neely are too similar for it to be a coincidence,” Mr Walters said.
Police Scotland confirmed last month they were investigating claims that a paedophile network had preyed on young footballers.
It came after the independent review, commissioned by the Scottish FA, received “substantive” new evidence of an organised cross-border abuse ring.
In January
The Times published allegations that Bennell and Jim McCafferty, a former Celtic kit man and Celtic Boys Club coach, were part of a group that trafficked young players. Bennell, 66, is serving a 31-year sentence for 50 charges of child sexual abuse, while McCafferty, 74, was jailed last year for molesting young players over 24 years.
One survivor, Malcolm Rodger, 49, has waived his right of anonymity to claim he was abused separately by McCafferty and Bennell after being introduced to them by Bill Kelly, his former coach at the now defunct West Lothian club Uphall Saints.
Kelly, 84, admitted abusing 12 boys over a 22-year period but served just one year in prison in 1987. Another of his victims claimed that Kelly was an associate of Harry Dunn, the former Rangers and Liverpool youth scout, who died before he could stand trial on abuse charges in 2017.
Kelly denies having any connection with Bennell, Dunn or McCafferty.