Episode 4: Michelle Gray has been at the forefront of a battle for justice against one of the world’s best supported sporting clubs – Scotland footballing powerhouse Celtic FC – who she alleges was involved in a wide-ranging, decades long cover-up over a paedophile ring that operated within the club’s grounds and targeted young footballers.
She speaks with our deputy editor, Gary Johnston, about how the memory of her now deceased brother Andrew – a once promising footballer with dreams of stardom – means she will never stop fighting until the complete truth has been revealed once and for all.
Gordon, Michelle, Helene and all the other victims need an apology from Celtic fc and the Scottish government who for some strange reason, won’t talk about this vast let down of the children of Celtic’s boys club,and no doubt other football clubs.
The Scottish Government is already dealing with a In Care Child Abuse Inquiry.
It cannot be involved With Football Abuse to the detriment of those Survivors In Care.
That was made clear from the outset.
I was an Ex Proffesional Football Player in Scotland and England.
I have been involved with both F.A. as a Survivor and the SFA were exposed as Not Fit For Purpose by their own Child Protection and Safeguarding Team.
The Celtic Survivors got Justice in the Scottish Court.
The Pedophilles were arrested,prosecuted,sentenced and incarcerated by the Criminal Courts.
That’s Justice .Story Ended . Case closed in Criminal Court.
So their next step is the Civil Court for Redress,Reparation,Compensation.
The Civil Court cannot find them guilty as the Criminal Courts have dealt with the matter.
What the Civil Courtcan do is take action financially if there is a contractual link between
the Boys Club and Celtic Football Club.
That’s a matter for Civil Court to decide and to deal with it fairly.
I knew people who played with the Boys Club not one of those Boys were signed as Proffesional Celtic Players whilst at Celtic Boys Club. There is no contractual link.
Most of these guys never made it to signing a contract and even if they did they got farmed out to Junior Clubs,so they must be Entity’s in link between the Boys Club,Junior and Proffesional Football.
The government inquiry is a sham, the chair and several other inquiry members have resigned due to government interference, it omitted religious and sporting organisations at the start despite obvious concerns they should be included, they were asked to expand on the remit and refused on the grounds it would take too long, given that most of the survivors have waited decades another few years would have been worth it to have these monsters exposed.
The many CFC pedophiles that have been convicted have had very lenient sentences, given that we now know there are hundreds of survivors they should be brought back to trial and given sentences that fit the crimes, the cases are not closed as there are offenders back in court facing more charges as more survivors come forward, you may want this to go away, but the decent folk among us want real justice for those whose lives were ruined.
Your last paragraph is in line with CFC using the separate entity defence, which every man and his dog in Scotland knows is pathetic, CFC signed up many players directly from the boys club, Alan Brazil has already proven this, CFC benefitted 100% from the boys club and claimed it was part of the celtic family right up until the survivors wanted an apology. Celtic football club refused to apologise or accept they were responsible, they refused to accept that a pedophile ring operated within the club and was allowed to by those in charge who ignored the abuse and even re-employed known abusers who they had close financial links with.
The survivors and the rest of the decent folk in Scotland want an independent inquiry into this whole disgusting sordid mess, it is the biggest scandal ever to happen in sporting history and goes right to the top of Scottish football, the financial redress for these men is the least they deserve, however it is of immense importance that Scotland conducts a full public inquiry into the industrial scale abuse within football and the Catholic church, sweeping it under the carpet is no longer acceptable.
Why is he shoe horning other clubs into this? Only one football club in Scotland ,has deliberately permitted child abuse and that is Celtic FC.
Utterly vile behaviour.
50 years and only 5 convictions and no compensation.
How many took their abuse at Celtic FC to the grave?
An institution that has Roman Catholic priests hanging around their football club till now and Archbishop Thomas Winning ,now deceased, used bribes to silence victims in his church who innocently sought his empathy, just to be slapped down and disgustingly belittled by offering money for his beloved church not to be exposed.