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...
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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.
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.