Celtic suspect denies abuse
BY ASHLIE McANALLY reporters@dailyrecord.co.uk CELTIC Boys Club founder Jim Torbett has told his child abuse trial he is “asexual”.
The former coach denies three ex-players’ claims that he abused them.
He told the jury he has always lived alone and described himself as asexual.
When Tony Graham QC asked: “What do you mean by that?” he replied: “I don’t participate in it.”
Torbett has been accused by one witness of putting money in his mouth while abusing him.
The accused said he did “everything he could to help” the man when he was a teenager and that when he heard the accusations: “I couldn’t believe it.” He added: “It’s devastating, it’s just not true.”
Another man claims Torbett abused him at his Trophy Centre shop in Glasgow.
Torbett said he “knew of ” the boy but didn’t know him. Asked if he saw him “semi-naked” as a child, he said: “It didn’t happen, Mr Graham.”
The court heard a third man – who died last October while swimming – claimed he was abused at the Trophy Centre, in a car and at his home.
Torbett, 71, said: “Nothing like that could ever happen in the Trophy Centre for a start and it never happened at all.”
Torbett founded the club in 1966 but they were not connected to Celtic.
He denies the charges and the trial continues at the High Court in Glasgow.