A former Celtic Boys Club player was abused on a trip to the USA which he believed was funded by Celtic Football Club, a court was told today. The man, now in his late 60s, told a jury at the High Court in Inverness that 75-year-old Jim Torbett was his abuser during the trip.
Celtic Boys Club founder Torbett is standing trial accused of historic sexual abuse of a teenage boy between June 1967 and December 1968 - when the boy was aged 13 and 14. The pensioner, who is not the boy named in the charges, told how he answered an advert to join the Boys Club and went on to play for them for around three years, before leaving when the alleged abuse got too much.
He claimed he would be touched inappropriately and be forced to fondle and sexually arouse Torbett at his Glasgow flat, in city centre restaurants, cinemas, hotels, and on trips abroad to first Canada and then the USA, Spain and Italy to watch Celtic play AC Milan in a European match. He said that some of it he believed was paid for by Torbett himself, although he believed Celtic FC paid for the USA trip.
