Boys’ Brigade top officer abused children at camp

Paedophile assaulted lads during youth group events and at allotment

A Boys’ Brigade officer sexually abused two recruits in the youth organisation, then molested a third youngster after social services were alerted to allegations against him.

Colin Robertson was a captain in the BB in Dundee when he indecently assaulted two boys at camps and at his allotment in his home city.

In 1979, an adult contacted Dundee social services to report one of the victim’s claims of sexual contact between the BB officer and himself.

Robertson resigned from his post the following year but targeted a nineyear-old boy for repeated abuse, during which time he let the youngster look at pornographic magazines and allowed him to drink beer and rum.

Victims were interviewed by police in recent years and Robertson, now 86, was charged with three offences of indecent behaviour and three of indecent assault, between July 1973 and July 1987.

A judge at the High Court in Edinburgh ruled yesterday that

Robertson committed the offences after an examination of the facts held in the absence of the accused.

Robertson, who has dementia and physical illnesses, was earlier found to be unfit to stand trial.

He placed Robertson, of Colinton Place, Dundee, on the sex offenders register for five years and made no further order in the case.

The court heard Robertson was a company captain with the BB for several years.

One victim told the court he had joined at the age of 11 or 12 and knew Robertson as “skip”.

The man, now aged 58, said: “He was the main man. He was the top dog.”

The witness told of going to BB camps in Inverness, Perthshire and Angus and visiting Robertson at his Dundee allotment.

He said that after an inspection of boys sharing a tent in Inverness the others were dismissed but he was asked to stay. Robertson then molested him.

On another occasion Robertson got into his sleeping bag and touched him.

The victim also became a visitor to his allotment and was abused in a shed.

He said: “I worked out the allotment wasn’t about gardening for him, it was about having one-to-one contact.”

A second victim was also in the BB and said of Robertson: “He was a very approachable sort of person. Everybody seemed to like him.”

He became the target for Robertson’s abuse at a camp in Inverness.

The man said: “It all started off as sort of play. He would tickle me and try to make me laugh. Then he would slowly put his hand into my sleeping bag and then he would start caressing me.”

He said Robertson would also perform sex acts on himself and went on to have penetrative sex with him.

The third victim was aged nine or 10 when he met Robertson, who took him on fishing trips to Meigle in Perthshire and invited him to his allotment, where sexual abuse occurred.

The man said he has twice attempted suicide and a hospital psychiatrist told him he would have to report the abuse to the police.

Colin Robertson used his BB captain status to prey on recruits.