Celtic statement

The Police and The Old Board were incompetent no doubt, but it has to be said it’s easy to look back with hindsight. The police took no action and the board must have thought there’s no way they could have gotten things so wrong. This was a plague in the 70s..

They gambled with our young players safety which as said is unforgivable. And if there was an apt Criminal Offence then fair enough.. but there isn’t.. that’s my point really.

Forcing them to give evidence and account for their actions at some sort of enquiry may provide victims some solace. It should be victim led and they should be consulted.

It’s unlikely we would launch our own enquiry into ourselves? Who then?

 

Well this is a * mess. So many questions it's unreal and not convinced Celtic will ever do enough to find out the answers to a lot of them, although I'm not sure anyone even knows what they can do.

You'd have thought though, if a * like Torbett was essentially using Celtic's name and brand to entice young boys in to his club and abuse them, we'd have wanted to have done a lot more in the past to find out exactly what happened and how it was ever allowed to happen.

 

I take that on board.. the more I think about it.

If I was a McGinn or a Kelly I would welcome it.. if I had nothing to hide..

How would we launch an enquiry into ourselves tho? Doesn’t seem likely..

 

If your reaction to this is to say ‘what about rangers, what about this other club’ you need to cop on.

This happened, our club might not have employed the man but there was links and young boys were abused so it has to be looked at.

The BBC trying to shame the club and whoever asked the man in charge of a football team about it are scum. They have nothing but publicity in mind with carry on like that.

Whether or not we ran the boys club an investigation into every link we had with them needs to be done and questions need to be asked.

 

This will hurt Celtic badly with sponsors so the investors/shareholders should call a meeting with the board and demand an investigation.

 

We definitely should have been more proactive than reactive to all of this..

Clearly more than that beasty * should be answering questions like who let him back in. How the * could he possibly have got back in after being * off by Jock once he'd got wind. Why didn't we do an internal investigation at the time..

It's sickening and saddens me that we've had a cloud over us/the boy's club because of neglect at best and something more sinister at worst because it's clear that people inside knew what he was all about or up to..

 

We could appoint a lawyer/QC to do it and give them permission to speak to whoever is still at the club and also approach anyone from the past, who you would think would be more than happy to talk about it, Let them have whatever records we have kept etc. Or we could ask the Authorities/Government, who would have more sway tbf, and ask to be jointly involved - Lawwell or another from the board for example.
Its at times like this Paul McBride would have been invaluable.

 

Right, so I asked this question earlier on today and it wasn't taken up for an answer (not aimed at you TT).

Why all this need to talk about inquests and public whatevers, the BEAST in question who has committed these acts has been jailed (albeit too late and for not long enough), so if there's any further justice or retribution to be saught why isn't it through a civil suit against the convicted peadophile?

The reason I ask is because there's nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to suggest that this is any sort of institutional abuse, other than at most utter incompetence to properly deal with it back in a day in age where "creeps" weren't as widely and as openly taken on.

The * convinced the parents of the kids he abused to let him take their kids into his care and even take them to his own private home unsupervised ffs, clearly he was seen and held in some high regard by the upper echelons at Celtic - quite easy to understand why some would give it the "no way would he be doing anything wrong" blind eye opinion.

 

You would need an enquiry with the power to compel people to give evidence.. They cost money, we could ask for one but we wouldn’t be guaranteed to get one.

Again, if it is what the victims want then requesting an enquiry would be a step in the right direction. It has to be done for the right reasons..

 

why was he allowed back?

 

Need to ask Kelly's and McGinn hence the need for an investigation.

 

Full investigation needed. When history is written I’d rather we were the club that addressed our problems and tried to provide some comfort to the victims unlike certain clubs who pass them off to the liquidators.

 

ah right i thought he was done before , so it was rumours then and he got back? dunno much aboot it.

should have got longer than 6 years the rat.

 

and conveniently ignore the guys that had done something similar at their club , not to use this to score points but people in glass houses..... bbc said there was no history of a police report despite them saying they reported him ( neely or the other guy i cant recall ) either way i think this was rife in all walks of life as we see stories of it emerging now.

 

Aye definitely, the first step is identifying all those involved, whether it was abusing or covering up the fact, why the * was re-appointed etc.

Then at the same offer all victims compensation if they want it, money would obviously help but need to go further and find the best psychologists in the country to help them and if needed get them on a career path. That also hopefully help any other victims come forward. There’s a lot wrongs that need to righted.

 

I think you asked this question in a bit of a different way earlier and I replied with the following -

Just because there is an enquiry into this doesn't mean the victims can't take out a civil case against the *, I hope they do. But irrespective of what the victims do or don't do I just want to know/find out how he came back, why this happened, who knew what and when did they know it etc, that is why I want an investigation into this whole mess.

 

Sorry mate, must have missed your reply.