I want justice but SFA has washed its handsofme
Victim criticises football bosses for dismissing historic abuse case
Football bosses have been accused of paying lip service to a landmark inquiry into sexual abuse in the game after rejecting a victim’s claim for compensation.
The Scottish Football Association is refusing to compensate the victim of a known paedophile referee – because the abuse took place when he was off duty. Stuart Mcmillan, left, was a schoolboy when he was assaulted by referee Hugh Stevenson.
But lawyers for the SFA have now rejected his claim. Among the reasons they gave was that it happened in Stevenson’s car, after a football function.
Campaigners have criticised the SFA, saying its stance contradicts its responses to an independent inquiry into sex abuse. Last night Stuart, now 59, said: “Football’s governing body should be ashamed for failing to set the right example.”
I was sexually abused by a referee on the way home from a match. I was just 17. The only way he had access to me was because of the SFA but now, despite warm words, they are washing hands of responsibility
Football bosses have been accused of leaving a sexual abuse victim feeling “worthless and abused all over again” after denying him compensation.
The Scottish Football Association (SFA) has refused to compensate a victim of a known paedophile referee because the abuse took place when the official was not on duty. Stuart Mcmillan was a schoolboy when he took part in a football match for trainee referees and later the same day accepted a lift home from an SFA awards dinner with referee Hugh Stevenson.
During the journey, Stuart says Stevenson sexually assaulted him, an incident which left him traumatised for life. Stuart, now 59 and a prison officer, has launched a claim for compensation against the SFA but has now been told that the governing body is rejecting his case.
A letter from the SFA’S lawyers said it was not liable on a number of grounds including that Stevenson was not on duty at the time of the offence, and that any authority he had over the schoolboy as a result of his position with the SFA would have ended when the day’s organised activities did.
It said: “Based on the account provided by your client, the circumstances of the assaults falls outwith our client’s ‘field of activity’. Driving your client home after the course had completed was not an extension of any duty that Mr Stevenson may have had. Any authority which Mr Stevenson may have had would have ended when the course did.”
The letter also states there was no evidence that Stevenson was an SFA employee, and that there was no connection between his position as a referee and the alleged offence against Stuart. While the letter does express the SFA’S “every sympathy” for Stuart, it also appears to question his account of the attack, saying: “Your client does not have the benefit, in terms of evidential proof, of any relevant conviction.”
It also points out that the alleged attack took place nearly 40 years ago and that Stevenson died nearly 16 years ago. Campaigners last night criticised the response saying it flew in the face of findings made by the Sfa-commissioned interim Independent Review of Sexual Abuse in Scottish Football, published in June 2018, which noted that victims were put off coming forward because their accounts were often challenged. The inquiry was led by former children’s charity executive Martin Henry.
In 2016 Stevenson, who died in 2004, was accused of committing a catalogue of child sex offences over a number of years. One victim told a BBC documentary he was repeatedly abused and raped. That case was included in the final Independent Review published in February. Police
– Stuart Mcmillan
twice submitted a file to the Crown Office in 1993 and 1996 though no action was taken. Stuart, who was just 17 and training to become a professional referee at the time of the attack, said the response from the SFA had left him feeling angry and belittled.
He told The Sunday Post: “Football’s governing body should be ashamed for failing to set the right example and using a spurious excuse to slither out of their responsibility.
“My life, and the lives of others, was destroyed by the vile actions of one of their trusted referees, a scout and youth coach, who had unfettered access to hundreds of young boys as a result of SFA endorsement.
“Of course he didn’t sexually abuse me on the football pitch in front of everyone. He attacked me in his car, on the way home from a match for trainee referees and an official SFA awards
dinner when I was just 17 years old. The only possible way he was able to have that access to me, and to the others he abused, was because of the SFA.”
Stuart, from Renfrewshire, said the assault prompted him to abandon his dreams of becoming a referee and the trauma had a devastating impact on his personal relationships throughout his adult life.
He said: “I’d been determined to become a professional referee and enrolled on the SFA training programme where I was considered promising. Stevenson – who knew my parents because my father had been one of his teachers – reassured them he’d look after me.” Stevenson invited Stuart to play in a friendly match between referees in Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, and then on to the awards ceremony afterwards. He said: “It was the first significant match I’d played at and first grown up dinner function I’d been to. I was underage and never a drinker, but I was encouraged to have a couple of beers. Two bottles of beer left me slightly dizzy. Stevenson laughed and said he’d run me home.
“I now understand Stevenson singled me out as vulnerable. Once I was in his car, I was an easy target. I did what he told me and was shocked when he began to abuse me. In those days you didn’t challenge anyone in authority. I froze.”
After the sickening assault Stuart said he became withdrawn and suffered flashbacks.
He said: “I couldn’t tell my folks what happened. How could I? My parents went to their graves never knowing what Stevenson did to me.
“I spent years bottling up the abuse and couldn’t trust anyone ever again. My marriage broke down and other relationships struggled. I’m still suffering flashbacks, nightmares, depression.
“I bitterly regret not speaking out about it before now, and urge anyone suffering in silence not to make the same mistake.”
He said it was only after Stevenson was named in the 2016 TV documentary that he realised he was not the only victim.
It was then that he decided to report the incident to police, contact a lawyer and get expert medical help.
Child abuse campaigner David Whelan said that as Scottish football’s governing body, the SFA had a responsibility to take the lead in properly helping victims. He said: “They should accept responsibility and liability, and do so quickly.
“By not accepting liability, they leave victims feeling worthless and abused all over again.”
The SFA’S stance appears to contradict its own interim independent report, which noted: “Most people who are sexually abused as children or young people do not report this immediately or even soon after. Many do not speak of these events until much later in life and some never reveal their experiences.
“We would of course like to think that in situations where harm is said to have been done under the auspices of a particular organisation or club this would be responded to directly, humanely, sympathetically and with a strong sense of justice. Acknowledgement is a start. Creating reasons not to do so where none exist is, in our view, actively counterproductive...”
The full report issued in February this year goes further, stating: “It is a matter of dismay to the Review that the issue of ‘belief’ still resonated within the current experiences of those affected.
“Some people told the Review that it had been inferred to them even quite recently – and often quite directly – that they have been making up accounts in order to obtain compensation etc. It is the view of the Independent Review that this attempt to undermine their credibility and disregard the impact they have endured is unacceptable and constitutes a serious wrong.”
After the first report, SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell apologised to victims and said he was committed, along with the clubs, to ensuring its recommendations were implemented.
Patrick Mcguire, senior partner for Thompsons Solicitors, who represents a number of football abuse victims including Stuart Mcmillan, said the firm had numerous cases involving the SFA, including several in which Hugh Stevenson was named as an abuser. Mcguire said: “Sadly, the response by the SFA to Mr Mcmillan’s case and to those of others has been, despite their own very damning report, to use every possible legal technicality to deny survivors of historic abuse financial justice.”
MSP James Dornan, an outspoken critic of how football has treated abuse victims, said: “The SFA must forget how much these claims will cost and think instead of the debt they owe to individuals who, whilst under their supposed care and protection, had their lives overturned by individuals those institutions made them believe they could trust.”
Darryl Broadfoot, the SFA’S head of sport, said: “Given that matters are ongoing it would be inappropriate to comment.”